Daily Kor for December 12, 2009: Déjà vu all over again?

What a difference a day makes. US envoy on North Korea Stephen Bosworth and those around him had been tight-lipped about the details of his meeting with DPRK officials, but today it appears that North Korea is much more inclined to head back to the six-party talks.

Is this a repeat of 1994 and 2000-whatever? I'm not against these talks per se as long as nobody is rewarding North Korea for bad behavior without solid guarantees that the bad behavior won't continue, especially if they can put a damper on full-scale, unfettered development of the nukes (and their export). Because frankly, I think the end game is to hold things off until regime change comes, which may be sooner than we thought a few months ago.

1. After talks which "narrowed differences," North Korea appears to agree to return to six-party nuclear talks (Reuters, BBC, Bloomberg, NYT, WaPo, AP via WaPo, Fox News, Yonhap)
• Russia welcomes North Korea's move (Reuters via NYT)
• Hillary Clinton calls talks with North Korea "quite positive" (CNN)
• North Korea's KCNA upbeat about talks (Yonhap) 
2. Republican leaders in the US Congress urge President Obama to work with them to pass ROK-US free-trade agreement (Reuters)
3. US envoy Robert King says American food aid to North Korea may resume if monitoring is permitted (Yonhap)
4. Seoul vows all-out support for Pyongchang's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics (Yonhap)
5. The two Koreas hold talks in Panmunjom over Seoul's provisions of anti-H1N1 medical assistance (Xinhua)
6. Bank of Korea raises 2010 GDP growth forecast to 4.6% (Bloomberg, WSJ, Yonhap)
7. Seoul Metropolitan Zoo fires its polar bears after repeated failures to make the heart shape thingee (Joongang Daily)