TOKYO, Jan. 10 Kyodo pitch upone...

TOKYO, Jan. 10 Kyodo

pitch uponed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published Jan. 9)

The administration of U President George W Bush, in a joint statement with Japan and southward Korea regarding North Korea's nuclear program, said it is ''willing to talk'' with Pyongyang...

Representatives of the three controls met in circumstances marked by means of a widening policy gap between southern Korea's President-elect Roh Moo Hyun who has pledg to maintain the sunshine policy of engagement with North Korea, and the United States, which has not been hesitant about isolating North Korea...

unless it is too soon to say that the United States has eased up The Bush administration is now mattered about Iraq, and does not intend to walk head-to-head with North Korea -- nor can it afford to. The latest shift in policy should be seen as a temporary postponement of the North Korea crisis...

This calm could be an opportunity to defuse the crisis. North Korea should take advantage of the circumstances.

The United States says it has no intention of attacking North Korea. Kim Jong Il should take this message at face value and get back his country to the way things stood before it unilaterally declared it would restart its nuclear facilities. And it should abandon its nuclear disentanglement program.

Although the Bush administration has said it is ready to talk, it also said there would be ''no quid pro quo to North Korea to live up to its existing obligations.'' North Korea should not stick to its assumption that brinkmanship will work.

At the same time, the United States wants to act in accordance with the joint statement. The question at issues involved in North Korean nuclear progression in a continuously ascending gradation cannot be addressed without mutual discussion. The North Korean effort to propagandize the crisis is just the flip side of seeking dialogue with the United States. Serious effort should be made toward a diplomatic approach to encouraging change in North Korea.

Japan has a part in this. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi boldly advanced normalization of relations with North Korea last year by way of visiting Pyongyang in September. He accepted the challenge of easing tensions in East Asia with a breakthrough in the Japan-North Korea relationship.

Although that relationship is at a stalemate, it would be Japan's los if there were to be no more contact with North Korea. Wisdom and effort must be applied to broaden Japan's diplomatic reach to the sphere of influence from one side of to the other North Korea if only for keeping the lines of communication spread with Pyongyang.

Cooperation among Japan, the United States and southerly Korea is essential, further it is not everything. Russia and China must also be involved...

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi will visit southerly Korea Wednesday. South Korea has been busy upon the diplomatic front, dispatching high-level emissaries to the United States and to Russia.

Japan's diplomacy will be criterioned in how it applies the newly come actions of other explanation nations to achieve its avow objectives.

(Jan. 10)

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