North Korea is like the obnoxious stranger who keeps intruding during a family emergency. Even though the United States is occupied with Iraq, slamming the door won't shut out the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons.

U.S. Defense Intelligence director Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby told Congress this week that the communist regime has an untested missile that could reach Alaska, Hawaii and the western continental United States. The International Atomic Energy Agency declared North Korea in violation of treaty obligations and referred the breach to the U.N. Security Council.

Some hope the North's expanded weapons program can be shut down by high-level talks at the United Nations. The schizophrenic North Korean regime says it doesn't trust Washington yet will negotiate only with Washington for a non-aggression pact between the two nations. Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated this week that the North's neighbors - South Korea, China, Japan, Russia - also need to be at the table.

The Bush administration has no alternative but to talk to North Korea and it must insist that others, particularly China, talk as well. China has the best chance of influencing its former dependent state to behave.

The administration is correct to be wary of entering into another deal like the sham brokered in 1994 by former president Jimmy Carter and winked at by then-president Bill Clinton. The North got $5 billion from us, mostly in heavy fuel oil, while continuing its prohibited uranium enrichment program. But the administration cannot pretend that the North Korean situation is not a crisis. Japan's Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said his country would launch a pre-emptive strike against Pyongyang if it was determined the North was preparing a ballistic missile attack. Meanwhile, South Koreans longing for reunification sound as naÔve about the North as Jimmy Carter, and U.S. troops face increasing hostility in the South because of offenses that have been committed against civilians.

We have 37,000 troops along the Korean demilitarized zone who won't be much more than hostages against a U.S. strike on the North's nuclear facilities. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he wants to shift them away from the border between North and South Korea and reposition them at "an air hub and a sea hub" in the region. That makes sense.

North Korea ranks third after Iraq and al-Qaida on the world's list of urgent security business. Right now, talking remains the best option for keeping it in third place.