Signs of Thaw Clinton Visit Should Mark Shift From Dispute to Dialogue Bill Clinton is visiting Pyongyang - nine years later than originally planned, and as a former, not incumbent, U.S. president. Reports say Washington is strictly limiting the purpose of the ex-leader's visit to negotiating the release of two American television journalists, who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the North Korean territory five months ago, stressing the visit is a personal one unaccompanied by any administration officials of importance. If so, it would disappoint not a few people wishing to see peace and reconciliation firmly take root on the Korean Peninsula. Presuming that the U.S. adminstration's comment is to prevent premature expectations from rising too high, and considering actual bargaining might have been all but finished between the diplomats of the two countries in New York, all eyes will be on whether Clinton will meet with Kim Jong-il and what the two newsmakers will talk about. To sum up, what matters is whether Clinton can replicate what another ex-U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, did 15 years ago, by turning decades of confrontation between Washington and Pyongyang into rapprochement as well as putting the peace process back on track between the two koreas. Both Clinton's political caliber and his policy at the White House are reasons for positive expectations, provided the incumbent U.S. President Barack Obama has given his predecessor free rein for such bargaining, and more importantly, the North Korean leader is ready to give what Obama wants - the so-called CVID, or complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. The ailing Kim should recall that the abolition of nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula was a dying injunction of his father. In short, the U.S.-North Korean relationship ca take up where Bill Clinton left off by regarding the George W. Bush administrations tenure as "lost eight years" as far as bilateral ties are concerned, if only they decide to do so and are ready to make mutual concessions. And two could better play the role of messenger for this job than Clinton, who had to stop short of attaining the diplomatic feat due in large part to opposition from his Republican successor? Experienceshows there can be no other choice but dialogue in solving the North Korean nuclear issue. Some may point out Pyongyang never abandoned its nuclear weapons programs even while the talks were going on, but the Stalinist country thinks it is Washington and its alliesthat failed to fully implement the agreement. We think a real peace-building process should not give room eve for such excuses, and hope the former U.S. leader's visit will serve as an occasion to start from the ground up on upgraded negotiations. It is also time for the Lee Myung-bak adminstration to start real dialogue, discarding petty one-upmanship. President Lee will need to present his "grand bargaining" as soon as possible, say, in his scheduled address to celebrate the Aug. 15 Liberation Day. Extending an olive branch is not a sign of weakness but reflects confidence based on a longer, broader vision. In international politics, nuclear arms are not necessarily ideological weapons but political tools that can be reduced or even abolished. If Clinton can teach Kim this lesson, few will mind the nine-year delay.