How did we finally get back to the negotiating table?

After a 13-month hiatus, the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arsenal are set to resume the week after next. Why are they starting up now, as opposed to a year ago? What pushed or lured Washington and Pyongyang—the key but most resistant parties—back to the negotiating table?

The short answer is that they both found a face-saving way out of their deadlock—perhaps because they realized it was about to morph into a suicidal game of highway chicken.

The longer answer tells a more complicated tale of mutual obstinacy, misguided morality, internecine squabbling, well-founded fear, and loopy paranoia—so much so that the short answer's optimism is beclouded by the mere posing of a further question: Do the revived talks have a ghost of a chance of succeeding? In other words, will they result in North Korea's nuclear disarmament?

For well over a year now, the North Koreans have been saying they would turn in their nukes if the United States did two things: provide energy assistance and pledge not to attack their territory.

The crucial development is that over the last few weeks the Bush administration—prodded and abetted by South Korea and China—has done just that.

It started on May 13 with a secret meeting in New York between the State Department's top two officials on Korean affairs and North Korea's top two diplomats at the United Nations. The North Koreans said they would rejoin the nuclear talks if the Bush administration dropped its "hostile policy" toward their regime. The U.S. officials assured them this could happen.

Soon after, the State Department approved a travel visa for Li Gun, the North Korean Foreign Ministry's top official on U.S. affairs. (He had been requesting such a visa for many months.) The official reason was to let Li attend a conference. The real reason was to hold a second meeting, just last week, to confirm the deal at a higher level.

After that session, Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs, flew to Beijing to meet with Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea's deputy foreign affairs minister, and to set the date. Meanwhile, South Korea chimed in with the second of North Korea's conditions—a promise of vast amounts of electricity. (South Korean companies are also drawing up contracts for huge and potentially lucrative projects to develop the North's mines and other untapped resources.)

And so the six-party talks were on again—delegates from the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and the two Koreas gathering in Beijing the week of July 25.

Why did it take so long for the Americans and the North Koreans to agree on something that seems so simple?