U.S. welcomes S. Korean worker's release from N. Korea

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 (Yonhap) -- The United States welcomed the release Thursday
of a South Korean worker detained in North Korea since March for allegedly
defaming the communist regime.

"Obviously, we welcome the release of the South Korean employee and hope that
that will remove an obstacle to potential dialogue between North and South,"
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said at a daily news briefing.
Crowley would not speculate on whether the release signals any intention by the
North to stop provocations and begin mending fences with South Korea, the United
States and the rest of the world.
"I think there's a cottage industry in trying to discern why North Korea does
certain things and not other things. But as for, you know, this step or that
step, who knows?" he said. "I would just simply say that they will begin to
assertively go down a path towards denuclearization."
Speculation of thawing relations between North Korea and the outside world is
mounting after the recent release of two American journalists and the South
Korean employee at the joint industrial complex in the North's border town of
Kaesong.
Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il met with former U.S. President Bill
Clinton for more than three hours in Pyongyang last week as Clinton negotiated
the release of the American journalists held for illegally entering the North in
March on a reporting tour.
Kim is also expected to meet soon with Hyun Jung-eun, chairwoman of Hyundai
Group, which has invested billions of dollars in the joint industrial park and a
couple of tour projects in the North over the past decades. The South Korean
worker is a Hyundai employee.
Hyun has been in Pyongyang since Monday to negotiate the worker's release, and
extended her stay for two days, spawning speculation of an imminent meeting with
Kim. She has met with the North Korean leader twice before.
If she meets Kim this time, Hyun will be the third foreigner to see the leader
since last summer, when he apparently suffered a stroke.
Late last year, Kim met with a senior Chinese official amid rumors of his failing
health.
North Korea still holds captive four South Korean fishermen who strayed into the
North in the East Sea last month, apparently due to a malfunctioning navigation
system.
North Korea released the South Korean worker through direct negotiations with
Hyundai without the South Korean government's involvement, giving rise to
expectations that North Korea will allow Hyundai to resume the tour projects for
South Koreans in the North's scenic Geumgang Mountain and the medieval capital
city of Kaesong, suspended last year amid worsening inter-Korean ties after the
inauguration of the hardline Lee Myung-bak government.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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