By ANNE GEARAN, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The White House approved Bill Clinton’s high-stakes rescue mission only with caution, intent that North Korea not benefit on the world stage. Yet officials now suggest it could mark a fresh start with the volatile regime.
The freeing of two Americans on the former president’s trip came with no strings attached, the Obama administration insisted Wednesday, and any move to break a stalemate over the reclusive dictatorship’s nuclear weapons will have to come from Pyongyang.
“Perhaps they will now be willing to start talking to us” and other nations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said following the release of the two reporters who work for former Vice President Al Gore’s television company.
The two journalists had been jailed since March on North Korean accusations they had illegally crossed the border from China. The North’s handling of the case suggested all along that it meant to use them as a bargaining chip with the United States, which it considers its primary enemy.
Hillary Clinton and the North Korean government recently exchanged insults – she said the country behaved like a teenager seeking attention, and Pyongyang said she lacked intelligence and style.
But her remarks on the court case against Laura Ling and Euna Lee turned noticeably mild in recent weeks. That was a sign that the groundwork was being laid for a U.S. overture, though the administration worked carefully behind the scenes to prevent any slipped detail that might let it appear President Barack Obama was caving to Pyongyang.
The mission began, U.S. officials said, with a mid-July phone call from the two captured journalists to their American families.
The women shared what the North Koreans had told them – that they would be willing to grant amnesty and free them if an envoy in the person of President Clinton would agree to come to Pyongyang and seek their release, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to outline some of the secretive preparation for Clinton’s mission.
North Korea was not likely to release the women without a personal visit from a sufficiently high-ranking American, said Victor Cha, the top Asia specialist at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.
“It’s partly a political face-saving issue for them,” Cha said.
The call from the women was followed by requests from the families and from Gore for Clinton’s involvement. National Security Adviser James Jones spoke with Clinton over the weekend of July 24-25, the official said, about his willingness to take on the mission.
Clinton indicated he would if there was a reasonable chance of success.
“We, through a variety of means, tested that proposition and to our satisfaction were convinced that in fact the North Koreans would, in response to President Clinton visiting Pyongyang, would release the journalists,” the official said in a briefing Tuesday night.
Preparations for Clinton’s visit included direct contacts between the two erstwhile enemy nations and assurances from the North Koreans that they were serious, officials said. They would not detail the communications, but some of the planning was done through Sweden, which looks after U.S. interests in North Korea.
The official said the U.S. administration insisted that the North Koreans acknowledge the Clinton visit would not be part of any broader negotiations between the two countries or connected to discussions on North Korea’s nuclear program. The North Koreans agreed.
The United States and North Korea have no formal diplomatic relations, but have communicated through channels at the United Nations and through intermediaries in the past.
The former president held discussions with some of Obama’s national security advisers and experts on the Korea issue ahead of the trip, including one meeting last weekend at his home in Washington, the official said. But the official added that Obama did not speak directly with Clinton before the trip.
Even after the women and the former president were back on U.S. soil Wednesday in California, the White House remained circumspect in public, brushing off any question of the rescue creating a diplomatic opening.
However, neither Obama nor his aides tried too hard to tamp down talk that Clinton’s trip could become a breakthrough.
“We were very clear this was a humanitarian mission. President Clinton was going on behalf of the families to get these young journalists out,” Obama said shortly after a brief conversation with the former president by telephone.
“We have said to the North Koreans there’s a path for relations that involves them no longer developing nuclear weapons, not engaging in the type of behavior that they’ve been engaging in,” Obama said in an interview with MSNBC.
There is plenty of reason for caution.
What happens next will depend largely on who succeeds the notably gaunt Kim Jong Il and when. The history of U.S. dealings with North Korea is not encouraging.
The North tested a nuclear device in 2006, and then promised to dismantle its weapons and the ability to make them. That agreement unraveled last year and North Korea tested another device this year.
“The best way to change our relationship with North Korea would be for the North Koreans to decide that it’s time to live up to the responsibilities and the agreements that they themselves entered into,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.
For one thing, said Robert A. Wood, a State Department spokesman, North Korea must first “recommit” to six-nation talks on the dismantling of its nuclear weapons program.
North Korea seemed to consider that the first move had already come – from Washington.
Clinton met with the North’s ailing leader for more than three hours, and allowed him to lay on the traditional trappings of a high-level state visit. For two countries without full diplomatic ties, the theatrics alone gave North Korea an opening to suggest a thaw.
And among the North Korean officials who greeted Clinton was the country’s chief nuclear negotiator – a silent indication of Pyongyang’s ability to showcase Clinton’s visit on a broader international canvas.
–––
Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven, Beth Fouhy, Pam Hess, Philip Elliot, Barry Schweid and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
