As there has been a fresh flurry of diplomatic consultations aimed at resuming the six-party talks, the international focus is not on a starting date, but on how Washington and Pyongyang would change their strategic thinking, said an article recently carried by China's Outlook weekly magazine.

Both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States are demonstrating some measures of flexibility in the run-up to the talks on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula, thanks to China's active mediation and reconciliation efforts of other parties concerned, said the signed article.

"But the real focus of international concerns this time round is not on a specific date for restarting the talks, but on whether the DPRK and the United States have already begun to readjust their policy thinking from the strategic perspective, how the process would evolve and to what an extent this kind of readjustment would be done," the Outlook article said.

The flexibility on the part of both Pyongyang and Washington is only at the tactical level and the decisive factor in the development of the situation is whether policy-makers of both countries could discard the strategic thinking of "carrot and stick" and "responding to the hardline policy with a super hardline policy," and begin to adopt the strategic thinking of reconciliation and cooperation, and "converting an enemy into a friend," it added.

Now Washington and Pyongyang have agreed to sit down and talk about the the resumption of the six-party talks. But the readjustment of their strategic thinking would be a gradual and long process, and soberness, reason, sincerity, patience and vision are required on the part of both sides, as well as the related efforts of other relevant parties, the article concluded.

Source: Xinhua