White House depicts ex-President Clinton's N. Korean visit as private

(ATTN: UPDATES with more details, background, experts' comments throughout)
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (Yonhap) -- The White House depicted Tuesday former President
Bill Clinton's visit to Pyongyang to free two American journalists held there as
"solely private," denying reports that Clinton conveyed a verbal message from
President Obama to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

"While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on
the ground, we will have no comment," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
said in a two-sentence statement. "We do not want to jeopardize the success of
former President Clinton's mission."
Gibbs, meanwhile, rebuffed the report of North Korea's official Korean Central
News Agency that Clinton "courteously conveyed a verbal message of U.S. President
Barack Obama to Kim Jong-il," saying, "That's not true."
Clinton arrived in Pyongyang earlier in the day and attended a dinner hosted by
Kim Jong-il, the KCNA reported, saying the North Korean leader "welcomed
Clinton's visit to the DPRK and had an exhaustive conversation with him." DPRK is
North Korea's official name the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Clinton's North Korean trip comes amid escalating tensions in the Korean
Peninsula after Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests in recent months, which
invited a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an arms embargo, financial
sanctions and an interdiction of North Korean cargo on high seas.
North Korea reacted angrily by threatening to boycott six-party talks on ending
its nuclear ambitions for good and bolster its nuclear arsenal, and demanded
Washington engage Pyongyang bilaterally to resolve the standoff over its nuclear
and missile programs.
Washington, however, has maintained that any dialogue should be held within the
six-party framework, fearing any bilateral dealings will undermine the ongoing
multilateral efforts for the North's denuclearization.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton's wife, also said recently
the U.S. will not accept "half measures" nor reward provocations, warning North
Korea "will face international isolation and the unrelenting pressure of global
sanctions" until it agrees to denuclearization.
The lukewarm response from the White House separating itself from Bill Clinton's
North Korean trip comes in this context.
There is no doubt that Clinton's visit will result in the release of Laura Ling
and Euna Lee of San Francisco-based Internet outlet Current TV, who were arrested
in March on the China-North Korea border while reporting on refugees fleeing the
isolated state. They were sentenced in June to 12 years in a labor camp for an
unspecified "grave crime" and illegal border crossing.
Concerns, however, are mounting over a chasm in the international unity to
pressure North Korea into returning to the six-party talks for its eventual
denuclearization.
"While gaining the freedom of the two journalists would be a welcome development,
Clinton's mission risks undermining ongoing international efforts to pressure
North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons," Bruce Klingner, senior fellow at the
Heritage Foundation said. "The Obama administration should have, instead,
insisted on resolving the issue through existing diplomatic channels, including
special envoy Ambassador Stephen Bosworth."
The scholar also worried about China's response as China, North Korea's
staunchest communist ally, has been reluctantly agreeing with international
sanctions on North Korea.
"Even if Clinton focuses solely on gaining the release of the journalists, China
and Russia would seize upon any perceived diplomatic breakthrough with North
Korea as justification for rescinding sanctions imposed against Pyongyang for
repeatedly violating U.N. resolutions," he said.
North Korea has rejected Washington's proposal to send Bosworth, U.S. special
representative for North Korea policy earlier this year, to Pyongyang to discuss
the stalled six-party talks, amid speculations Pyongyang wants to have a
higher-level figure capable of discussing a package deal.
In calling for the early release of the two journalists, Secretary Clinton has
warned the North not to link their detention to the crisis created by North
Korea's second nuclear test in May. She said the issue "should be viewed as a
humanitarian matter."
Klingner urged the Obama administration to stick to its principle of separating
the journalists from the nuclear crisis.
"The Obama administration must ensure former President Clinton remains
constrained by narrowly defined negotiating parameters and insists that the
issues of the two U.S. journalists and North Korean compliance with U.N.
resolutions be seen as clearly separate issues," he said. "Abandoning these
punitive measures prior to North Korea taking meaningful steps to come into
compliance with U.N. resolutions would mark another dangerous weakening of
international resolve to secure complete North Korean denuclearization."
Nonetheless, Kim Jong-il's treatment of Bill Clinton at a dinner party leaves
open the possibility of the influential former U.S. president seeking a bigger
role than the release of the journalists.
"Clinton may be tempted to freelance U.S. diplomacy, negotiating his own vision
of a nuclear agreement with North Korea, as former president Jimmy Carter
disastrously did in 1994," Klingner said.
Under the Clinton administration, high-level exchanges took place between North
Korea and the U.S. to address concerns over the North's nuclear and ballistic
missile capabilities, with then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and
North Korean Marshal Jo Myong-rok visiting each other's capitals.
In his waning months in 2000, Clinton agreed to visit Pyongyang, but did not keep
his promise, citing lack of time. He recently expressed regret that he was not
able to visit Pyongyang at that time.
Talk also abounds about the possibility that Bill Clinton may follow the path of
former President Jimmy Carter, who visited Pyongyang to broker a nuclear deal
between the U.S. and North Korea and even an inter-Korean summit in 1994, at the
height of the first North Korean nuclear crisis.
North Korea, allegedly on its way to transfer power to Kim Jong-un, the ailing
North Korean leader's third and youngest son, might try to discuss a package deal
with Clinton to help consolidate the power of the 26-year-old heir.
Secretary Clinton recently said that "full normalization of relations, a
permanent peace regime, and significant energy and economic assistance are all
possible in the context of full and verifiable denuclearization."
Whether or not Bill Clinton's visit produces a breakthrough, the visit appears to
be a diplomatic gain for the reclusive communist state under international
sanctions.
"The North Korean side will be very pleased that their American hostage gambit
has lured former President Clinton to the DPRK," Nicholas N. Eberstadt, Henry
Wendt Scholar in political economy at the American Economic Institute, said.
"After eight years of dealing with his administration, Pyongyang will be
confident they know how to play him," he said. "The North Korean side never gives
anything away for free. If the Clinton visit succeeds in wresting loose the two
hostage U.S. journalists, it will be in exchange, in Pyongyang's estimate, for
valuable American concessions on the nuclear question or the U.S.-South Korean
alliance."
hdh@yna.co.kr
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