Former President Clinton in North Korea

[Richard]

Last former US President to visit DPRK was Jimmy Carter - they've probably never forgiven us for that one.

Richard's $.02

Bill Clinton in North Korea to Seek Release of U.S. Reporters
Mark Landler and Peter Baker, NYT, 4 Aug 2009

Former President Bill Clinton landed in North Korea on Tuesday to negotiate the release of two American television journalists sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korean territory, according to a person briefed on the mission.

Mr. Clinton flew into Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in an unmarked jet early Tuesday morning local time, Central TV, a North Korean station, reported. The White House declined to comment.

Citing television footage from Pyongyang, The Associated Press said Mr. Clinton was greeted at the airport by North Korean officials including the chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and Yang Hyong-sop, vice parliamentary speaker. The footage showed him smiling and bowing as a young girl presented him with flowers.

The reported presence of the nuclear negotiator raised the question of whether talks would range beyond the fate of the two journalists to the broader relationship centering on North Korea’s nuclear program. The journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were detained by soldiers on March 17 near the North Korean border with China. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.”

The Obama administration had been considering for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea.

The choice of Mr. Clinton would mark his first public mission on behalf of the administration. His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.

Mr. Clinton is the first former American president to travel to North Korea since 1994, when Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang — with Mr. Clinton’s half-hearted blessing — to try to strike a deal to suspend the North’s nuclear work in return for concessions from the United States. Ultimately that led to the 1994 nuclear accord, which froze North Korea’s production of plutonium until the deal fell apart in 2003.

As president, Mr. Clinton was initially ambivalent about Mr. Carter’s intervention. But Mr. Carter’s trip also proved that a former president could break a logjam, and Mr. Clinton has some cards to play with the North, because he came close to traveling to the country in December, 2000, the last days of his presidency, in hopes of striking a deal to contain North Korea’s missiles as well. Mr. Clinton decided not to go because the deal was not pre-cooked, and his advisers feared he would be appearing desperate for an end-of-presidency deal.

Relations with the North have descended rapidly since then. Under the Bush administration, the North exited the 1994 agreement, harvested enough plutonium for approximately eight nuclear weapons, and tested one. Mr. Obama never had time to get talks off the ground with the North before it conducted a second nuclear test and terminated the one significant deal it struck with the Bush administration. It is in the process of restarting its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.

The big unknown of this trip is whether Mr. Clinton can also jump-start the broader relationship, at a time of apparent succession struggle in North Korea. It seemed questionable that the North Koreans would allow him to meet the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, who suffered a stroke last summer and appears to be in continued poor health.

In fact, the jailing of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee came amid a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States since Pyongyang tested that second nuclear device in May and then launched several ballistic missiles.

In recent months, the White House has marshaled support at the United Nations for strict sanctions against the North Korean government, including a halt to all weapons sales and a crackdown on its financial ties.

But the administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign separate from this case, which American officials have portrayed as a humanitarian issue, appealing to North Korea to return the women to their families.

“Their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either,” the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said to reporters in June.

At the time they were detained, Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president. They were researching a report about North Korean women sold through human traffickers and refugees who had fled to search for food in China.

The administration initially said the charges against the women were “baseless.” But last month, Mrs. Clinton said the United States was now seeking “amnesty” for the women, signaling a readiness to acknowledge some degree of culpability in return for their freedom.

“The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,” Mrs. Clinton said in early July. “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/wo...er=rss&emc=rss

Bill Clinton's previous negotiation with North Korea didn't work out so well for us. We gave them lots of stuff and they went back on their word.

[The Reaper]

This script is playing out exactly the way the NKs wanted.

For putting their nation in such a bind willingly, the two idiots in question should be allowed to serve out their sentences, and to become NK citizens, if desired.

We are rewarding bad behavior by the NKs, and the idiots.

On a positive note, maybe they will keep Slick Willie there as well. He and Kim should hit it off well.

TR

[Sigaba]

Source is here.

(CNN) -- North Korean President Kim Jong Il has pardoned and released two U.S. journalists, state-run news agency KCNA said Wednesday.

The announcement came after former U.S. President Clinton met with top North Korean officials in Pyongyang to appeal for their release.

"Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it," the news agency reported. "Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.

"The meetings had candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them."

The report said Clinton then conveyed a message from U.S. President Obama "expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries."

It added, "The measure taken to release the American journalists is a manifestation of the DPRK's humanitarian and peace-loving policy.

"The DPRK visit of Clinton and his party will contribute to deepening the understanding between the DPRK and the U.S. and building the bilateral confidence."

DPRK is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the nation's official name.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, both reporters for California-based Current TV, a media venture launched by Clinton's Vice President Al Gore, have been held since March.

Lee and Ling were arrested while reporting on the border between North Korea and China and sentenced in June to 12 years in prison on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign.

Because the United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, efforts to resolve the issue have been handled through Sweden, which represents U.S. interests in the reclusive communist state.

Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration had dropped its request for Ling and Lee to be released on humanitarian grounds and instead was seeking amnesty, which implies forgiveness for an offense.

This change in language is an important distinction that could move North Korea to release the women without feeling that its legal system has been slighted, analyst Mike Chinoy said.

"I suspect that it was made pretty clear in advance that Bill Clinton would be able to return with these two women; otherwise it would be a terrible loss of face for him," said Chinoy, an Edgerton senior fellow on Asia at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, California. "The bigger, broader and more important question is what else could be on the agenda. Will Clinton be carrying a letter from Barack Obama for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il? Will he meet Kim Jong-Il?"

Clinton's mission comes as the United States and its allies in the region are trying to push North Korea back into stalled nuclear disarmament talks. North Korea conducted its second nuclear bomb test in May and has conducted several missile tests since then. The United Nations responded by tightening and expanding sanctions.
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The two nations were on opposite sides in the 1950-1953 Korean War and had no regular contacts before a 1994 crisis over North Korea's nuclear program. North Korea agreed at that time to halt the development of nuclear weapons, but abandoned that accord and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003.

Clinton had considered visiting North Korea in 2000 near the end of his second term as president. His secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, had gone to Pyongyang in early 2000 to meet with Kim, now widely reported to be ill.

What terrifically wonderful news for viewers of Current TV, The View, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

This script is playing out exactly the way the NKs wanted.

For putting their nation in such a bind willingly, the two idiots in question should be allowed to serve out their sentences, and to become NK citizens, if desired.

We are rewarding bad behavior by the NKs, and the idiots.

On a positive note, maybe they will keep Slick Willie there as well. He and Kim should hit it off well.

TR

Spot on as usual Sir!

Can only imagine what else Clinton and 'ol Kimmie discussed, to secure the release... Makes me wonder, anyway...

Holly

[Utah Bob]

The State Department spokesman just gave a No Comment.
I guess bill willl be heading to Tehran now.

One of the idiot backpackers is a woman.

[ACE844]

I think it was fixed. There was no way Mrs....errum..I mean Mr. Clinton was going there and coming home empty handed. I also think it's a continuation of his politicking and campaigning for a spot at the UN. The rumor mill claims he covets the Secretary Generals chair but couldn't win that race. Now he's trying another avenue. Just my $.02

[Richard]

Who better to send after women than Bill Clinton? The guy still has it!!!! He can pick up women all around the world.

I wonder if they had to wear blue dresses?

Richard's $.02

[incarcerated]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...REwPP4sDeHQRzw

North Korea must stop provocative behavior: Obama

(AFP) – 14 hours ago
WAKARUSA, Indiana — President Barack Obama said Wednesday North Korea must stop its nuclear program and provocative behavior, addressing the diplomatic fallout from Pyongyang's release of two US journalists.

Obama reiterated that former president Bill Clinton's mercy mission to free the two female reporters was purely a private initiative and not a sign of easing international diplomatic pressure on the Stalinist state....