Is North Korea emerging from its isolation and groping for a more cordial relationship with the United States?
In the face of extraordinary change in the communist world, North Korea has remained one of the most aloof and intransigent of the communist countries.But in a recent ceremony, the North Koreans turned over to the United States the remains of five American servicemen killed in the Korean War some 40 years ago. The gesture raised questions.
The North Koreans sidestepped the U.S. government, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations, to hand over the remains to a congressional delegation.
Some experts pondered whether the gesture towards the Americans was not calculated to crack the common front between the United States and South Korea. The atmosphere between the two Koreas remains discordant.
But still, returning the remains was the first positive signal from North Korea in years, and a fulfillment of one of the conditions the United States has been suggesting as a prelude to a better relationship.
This is an advance on the situation which existed when the United States barred its diplomats even from contact at social functions with the North Koreans.
However, North Korea's involvement in international terrorism - attacks against South Korean government leaders and civilian aircraft - has in the past made the United States hesitant about a much closer relationship with North Korea.
Washington has also been cautious about pursuing ties with North Korea to the exclusion of South Korea from any dialogue. Relations between North and South remain frigid, stemming as they do from a bitter war between the two and from acts of terrorism and infiltration by the North against the South.
South Korea has made significant overtures to North Korea since the election of President Roh Tae Woo in 1988. President Roh urged greater Japanese and American contacts with Pyongyang and offered to engage in customs-free "internal" trade between North and South.
Roh permitted debate in South Korea on the possibilities of reunification, and there were promising North-South discussions on parliamentary exchanges and on a meeting of prime ministers designed to set the stage for a summit between President Roh and North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.
However, secret trips to the North without government approval by the Rev. Moon Ik Hwan and an opposition member of the National Assembly, and their subsequent arrest, brought the dialogue to a standstill and stifled the reunification debate in the South.
At a conference between Americans and North Koreans sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last year, North Korean officials admitted it would be impossible "to bring about a communist revolution" in the South.
They said: "We are prepared now, and we will be prepared in the future to tolerate ideas and systems contrary to ours." Thus they seemed ready to discuss a confederation between North and South that would leave the South's political and economic system intact.
This, however, would give equal representation to both Seoul and Pyongyang despite the disparity in their populations -some 43 million in the South vs. 22 million in the North.
While a legacy of suspicion and hostility remains, the door has been opened to further exploration of the possibility that North Korea may at last be responding to the change that is sweeping much of the communist world.