North Korea's nuclear crisis has been bubbling away ominously throughout the war in Iraq and the build-up towards it. The North Korean leadership at one stage threatened to draw one stark lesson from the war - that the only way to deter a possible United States attack would be to reactivate its own nuclear weapons programme as soon as possible.
Over the weekend they have shifted ground radically from that position. They are now willing to engage in multilateral talks, which they have previously rejected, if the US is ready to make a "bold switchover" in its policy.
This change of approach is a welcome relief to all directly and indirectly concerned. Potentially it could allow for a rapid de-escalation of tension on the highly militarised peninsula. Clearly the Iraq war has told immensely with the North Korean leadership. The ease with which US forces overran Iraqi military resistance contains obvious lessons for their own capacity to confront a similar threat, should it ever arise. The alternative course, to seek a peaceful outcome to the dispute, falls on ready ears among its neighbours.
South Korea, China and Japan have all exerted pressure for such an outcome, which has been warmly welcomed too by President Bush in Washington. China's role has been critical. Fearing an escalating crisis on its border, with potentially destabilising effects on the region, it has put maximum pressure on the North Korean leadership to accept the multilateral approach and abandon the bilateral talks they sought with the US. They believed this would yield more compensatory aid if the North Koreans agreed to abandon their nuclear weapons programme. The new South Korean government has also accepted the multilateral approach and will be hoping this turn of events allows it to pursue a vigorous domestic reform programme.
The North Koreans will now have to reconsider their decision to opt out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Close students of its behaviour thought it significant that it did not proceed to produce weapons grade plutonium or test a ballistic missile during the height of the Iraq war. It makes more political sense now to seek greater security guarantees and aid for its energy programmes. This signals a possible return to the policy followed with the Clinton administration; in 1994 it concluded an agreement to provide nuclear fuel supplies and light water nuclear reactor. That policy floundered when the administration changed, but combined with a multilateral approach it makes more sense now. A lot depends on how bold all sides are prepared to be.