Seoul, Aug 4 (DPA) Former US president Bill Clinton arrived Tuesday in Pyongyang, state media reported, as South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said the focus of the trip would be to negotiate the release of two American journalists held since March in the reclusive communist state.
Clinton landed in Pyongyang and was met by high-ranking officials, including Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator, North Korea’s Central Television said in its midday broadcast.
North Korean observers were closely watching Clinton’s visit to see whether he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il amid hopes that such a meeting could turn around an escalation of tensions triggered by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.
“Our children presented flowers to Mr Clinton,” state-run Central Television said.
North Korean news media did not mention the purpose of Clinton’s visit in North Korea, but Yonhap, citing unnamed diplomatic sources in Seoul, said he would try to win the release of journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were sentenced last month to 12 years of hard labour after North Korea said they had illegally crossed its border.
The trip by Clinton, the husband of US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, also came at a time when talks with North Korea over its nuclear programme have stalled. Pyongyang is reportedly seeking direct talks with Washington while Washington wants to continue six-nation negotiations that also involve China, South Korea, Japan and Russia with the aim of ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.
Yonhap quoted one informed source as saying that the former president, whose administration was involved in extensive talks with the North Korean government, was to meet with Kim, whose health has been a matter of concern over the past year.
Lee and Ling were arrested in mid-March on the Chinese-North Korean border while working on a story about North Koreans fleeing their impoverished country.
They were working for the US-based online broadcaster Current TV, which was co-founded by Al Gore, who served as vice president under Clinton.
Yonhap quoted a source in Seoul as saying the US and North Korea had been in “active consultations” in recent weeks about Lee and Ling.
The US government, now headed by Clinton’s fellow Democrat President Barack Obama, has refused to tie Lee and Ling’s release with talks over the North Korean nuclear programmes.
Pyongyang withdrew from the six-nation nuclear talks after being internationally condemned for launching a long-range rocket in April and conducting its second nuclear test in May, but the negotiations had been stalled months before then.
North Korea has received another former president of the US. Jimmy Carter visited in 1994, again as nuclear tensions with North Korea were rising. He met then-leader Kim Il Sung, father of the current leader. Their meeting brought the North back to the negotiating table.
Clinton’s visit caused hopes to rise for the release of the US journalists at a time of uncertainty about the fate of a South Korean manager at a jointly run North-South industrial park who has also been detained in the North since March when he was arrested for allegedly criticising its totalitarian regime.
North Korea has also remained silent on the fate of a South Korean fishing boat after claiming at the weekend that the boat had illegally intruded into its territory.
The fishing boat with four crew members aboard is believed to have accidentally strayed into North Korea waters last week because of a malfunction of its global positioning system.
