Bill Clinton to Seek Release of Americans From N. Korea

August 4, 2009
Bill Clinton to Seek Release of U.S. Reporters in North Korea
By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton was headed to North Korea to negotiate the release of two American television journalists who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korean territory, a news agency reported early Tuesday morning in South Korea.

Mr. Clinton was on his way to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to the Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified source familiar with the situation. The White House declined to comment on Monday night.

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 administration had been mulling 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 Obama administration. His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.

The jailing of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee came amid a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States after Pyongyang tested a nuclear device in May and then launched a number of missiles. The White House 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, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, 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 the North 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 woman, 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.”