Activist's detention unrelated to security issues: U.S. State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (Yonhap) -- The detention of an American missionary in North Korea is a consular issue that is unrelated to security matters, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday, apparently hoping the incident will not affect its efforts to bring the North back to six-party talks on ending its nuclear ambitions.

"We consider this to be a consular issue unrelated to any security or political
issues," said Darby Holladay, a department spokesman.
Holladay said the U.S. government is still seeking consular access to the
American through the Swedish mission in Pyongyang.
Washington does not have diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, and the Swedish
mission handles consular affairs involving U.S. citizens in North Korea.
The North on Tuesday said it had detained an American citizen who "illegally
entered the DPRK through the DPRK-China border on Dec. 24," without naming the
person, and said that an investigation is under way. DPRK stands for the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.
The American is believed to be Robert Park, 28, a Christian missionary from
Tucson, Arizona, who entered the North on Christmas Day to call attention to
human rights conditions in the reclusive communist state -- designated by the
U.S. as one of the worst rights violators in the world.
The incident comes amid efforts by the U.S. to resume the six-party talks
involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, which Pyongyang has
boycotted due to U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests earlier this
year.
Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, visited
Pyongyang earlier this month in the first high-level contact with the North since
President Obama's inauguration in January. But he failed to obtain a commitment
from the North to return to the negotiations.
Bosworth said that officials in Pyongyang "indicated they would like to resume
the six-party process," and agreed on the "essential nature" of the six-party
denuclearization agreement.
In August, former President Bill Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
to secure the release of two American journalists detained months earlier for
illegally entering the North via China while reporting on North Korean defectors.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said in Seoul earlier in the day that
he expected the North to deport Park after confirming his intentions.
"For the U.S. government, the burden it feels seems to be different from the case
of the two female journalists," Yu said.
Park, a Korean-American, reportedly said in Seoul recently that he did not want
to be freed until Kim releases all political prisoners, believed to number in the
hundreds of thousands, in several concentration camps.
Suzanne Scholte, chairwoman of the Washington-based human rights group North
Korea Freedom Coalition, meanwhile, sent a letter to ambassador Sin Son-ho, North
Korea's permanent representative to the U.N. in New York to ask for leniency.
"We request that your government give Robert humanitarian consideration and allow
him the opportunity to return home safely," Scholte said in the letter dated
Wednesday.
"In fact, he entered North Korea purely out of love for the people of that nation
carrying that message of love and mercy and requests that North Korea open its
borders so that food, medicines and other provision could be delivered to the
people and that those detained in prisons be allowed access to medical
treatment."
hdh@yna.co.kr
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