(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Oct. 14) - A normal state

KYODO - Now that the United States has removed North Korea from its list of terror-sponsoring countries in a move to continue the denuclearization process, one serious question remains: Is the North then worthy of a place in the international community?

Its economic destitution aside, North Korea departs from what is normally
expected of a modern state in many ways, not least its arbitrary pursuit for
nuclear armament.
Deceptiveness is one of the most worrisome traits of the communist nation and is
one factor that makes the latest nuclear deal less than totally reassuring.
Pyongyang television last week showed 10 still photos - no video clip - of
Chairman Kim Jong-il inspecting an artillery unit, presumably as evidence of the
leader's healthy and normal activities after his weeks of absence from public
affairs.
Yet, even to untrained eyes the man in the pictures looked exactly the same as in
pictures during a front-line tour in August. The background in last week's
pictures was too green to have been bushes in the second week of October.
It seemed the Pyongyang propagandists wanted to demonstrate to the outside world
how strongly the chairman is in control at a time when a crucial decision was
being made in negotiations with the United States.
Still, what the North Koreans have said and showed all these years have created
doubt rather than trust. Maybe we tend to be overly suspicious of the North, but
we are anxious to see Pyongyang behave like a normal country so that the
international community can treat it like one.
North Korea has not been involved in any major terrorism since the attack in
Rangoon (now Yanggon) in 1983 which killed 17 members of a South Korean
presidential delegation, including several Cabinet members, and the bombing of a
Korean Air flight in 1987 leaving all 115 passengers and crew dead or missing.
Yet, its efforts for nuclear armament throughout the 1990s and 2000s have posed
as serious a threat to international peace as any terrorist attack.
Its development of long- and medium-range missiles at the same time as the
building of plutonium-based atomic weapons, and the occasional reports of
contraband trade, counterfeiting of dollars and money laundering have only
strengthened the North's status as an international outcast.
Domestically, North Korea's presidency has remained vacant since the death of Kim
Il-sung in 1994, adding to the abnormal nature of the nation's politics.
The monolithic rule has not eased a bit, with hundreds of residents crossing the
border into China everyday - successfully or unsuccessfully - in search of food,
while hundreds of thousands are known to be subject to subhuman conditions in
gulags.
Yet, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed the document Saturday
delisting the North as a state sponsor of terrorism so that the denuclearization
process will move ahead. Seoul welcomed the U.S. decision and is preparing to
give aid to the North via the six-party talks framework or independently.
The multilateral talks will soon resume and verification steps will be taken by
U.S. and IAEA experts, probably starting early next year. No one can tell when
the third and final stage of "dismantling" the North's entire nuclear program
will start, but the ultimate resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue will
depend on whether Pyongyang intends to act more like a normal state in the years
ahead.