A breakthrough with Pyongyang?

North Korea is not news these days. Last year, that wasn't the case. How can we explain this? Reading the foreign press might shed light on the matter. A high level delegation made up of senior US congressional aides and nuclear experts are or will be flying off to Pyongyang, to meet their North Korean counterparts. Among its member, you will find Keith Luse a senior staffer of Republic senator from Indiana Richard Lugar, Joel Wit, a former state department official and framer of the US North Korea Agreed Framework which froze Pyongyang's nuclear program, and Siegfried Hecker, ex director of the Los Alamost Nuclear Laboratory. Discussion will centre on an American programme on dismantling weapons of mass destruction which North Korea has expressed an interest in. This confab may accelerate the disabling of Pyongyang's nuclear reactor[s], and mark a breakthrough in US North Korean relations.
On the heels of this group comes the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on 26 February for an historic two day concert in Pyongyang.
These two events may or may not be related, yet they indicate that out of the public ear, the name calling is absent, and in the corridors of Washington and Pyongyang quiet diplomacy has the upper hand in order to close down North Korea's nuclear weapons factory. The reader can draw his own conclusions.