Pardon may reconfigure U.S.-North Korea relations

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea’s surprise “special pardon” of two American television journalists today may have reopened the channels of communication between the Obama administration and the secretive regime that for years has defied the world with its nuclear tests and political bombast.

Following a whirlwind 24-hour visit that capped months of quiet diplomatic negotiations, former President Bill Clinton left Pyongyang on a private jet with the reporters following talks with leader Kim Jong-il, according to a spokesman for the former president.

“President Clinton has safely left North Korea with Laura Ling and Euna Lee,” Matt McKenna said in a statement. “They are en route to Los Angeles where Laura and Euna will be reunited with their families.”

Early today, television footage showed the journalists, dressed in short-sleeved shirts, jeans and sneakers, shaking hands with Clinton as they climbed aboard the plane.

The Central Korean News Agency reported that Clinton “expressed thanks (for the pardon) and delivered an oral message from Barack Obama on improving relations between the two countries.” It added that Clinton “delivered a sincere request from the U.S. government for a pardon and return (of the two journalists) from a humanitarian aspect.”

In Washington, reaction from conservatives was generally muted. Democratic lawmakers heaped praise on the White House, even while White House officials continued to insist that they had no hand in Clinton’s apparent success. Officials said Clinton made the trip as a private citizen. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were on assignment for San Francisco-based Current TV in March when they were arrested by North Korean border guards and later sentenced to 12 years in prison for illegally entering the repressive state.

Reached at her home in Los Angeles, Ling’s sister Lisa Ling said the extended families of both reporters were together Tuesday and were keeping in close contact with U.S. State Department officials regarding Clinton’s progress.

“We are beside ourselves,” Ling said of the release. “We are beyond thrilled and so excited that we will finally be able to hold them in our arms.”

U.S. officials said that offering Bill Clinton as envoy was a high-stakes choice. The North Koreans, eager to have their importance acknowledged, were pleased at the idea of a visit from the former leader of the free world.

The plan was to give them, with the visit “a gesture of respect – but that’s all. No money, no flowery words,” said a person familiar with the negotiations.

He said that the administration also intends to continue trying to ratchet up pressure on North Korea in response to recent nuclear tests and missile launchings that the United States and allies consider illegal.

U.S. officials have tried to enlist other nations, especially in Asia, to close down North Korea’s nuclear and missile trade, and to try to cut it off from international financing to support that trade.

Clinton’s mission risked domestic criticism that the administration was rewarding one of the world’s worst weapons proliferators, a country that has repeatedly broken promises to the United States and its allies.

Some congressional Republican aides said it was difficult to judge the mission until it was clearer what promises, if any, Clinton had made to Kim, and what the administration might give the North Koreans to try to resume talks.

Reaction to Clinton’s trip seemed to run along partisan lines.

Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., applauded North Korea’s gesture and praised Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton “for their quiet but persistent diplomacy, which made this day a reality.”

However, John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Bush administration, condemned the “significant propaganda victory for North Korea, whether or not he carried an official message from President Obama.

“Despite decades of bipartisan U.S. rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages, it seems that the Obama administration not only chose to negotiate, but to send a former president to do so,” he wrote in a Washington Post column.

In South Korea, analysts said they hoped Bill Clinton’s visit was the first diplomatic domino to fall that would lead to a break in tensions on the Korean Peninsula that have risen in recent months with Pyongyang’s testing of both missiles and a nuclear warhead.

“Now, there’s a green light for changing from a phase of confrontation to that of communication,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.