North Korea Budges

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Byline: The Register-Guard

Last Friday, North Korea became the first nation to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - continuing a six-month display of brinkmanship that threatened to end in a conflict with the United States. The next day, North Korea made its first move away from the abyss, indicating that it would be willing to soften its long-standing insistence that it would negotiate only with the United States concerning its nuclear weapons program.

It's too early to call this a diplomatic breakthrough, but it's the first hopeful sign since last year, when the United States confronted North Korea with undeniable evidence that it had broken a 1994 …