Former president Clinton’s peep behind the N. Korean veil.
Posted on 05 August 2009
President Bill Clinton’s surprise trip to N. Korea yesterday, ended with a second surprise, the pardon and release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, journalists convicted in March for “hostile acts.” The women worked for CurrentTV the internet media channel founded by former Vice President Al Gore. As wonderful as the release of Ling and Lee was the trip probably has larger implications in that it expands the pipeline for messages between Washington and Pyongyang to be passed right at the time that the administration’s efforts at engaging the cloistered country seemed to be stalled.
We don’t know at all what, if anything, the US gave up in exchange for the freedom of Ling and Lee, it is entirely possible that what you see is what you get; that the visit was a private matter, and that the only thing exchanged was the opportunity for Kim Jong-Il to meet with and appear with a former president. That seems to have been the message displayed through state controlled N. Korean news media North Korean media which characterized the women’s release as proof of "humanitarian and peace-loving policy.". It does seem inconceivable that there was no wider mission undertaken in the visit by President Clinton. Clinton is an astute diplomat in his own right and of course, married to the U.S. Secretary of State. He was provided with an opportunity to observe and measure Kim Jong-Il on broader geopolitical terms and as importantly to observe, first hand, the state of Jong-Il’s health following his stroke last year.
The visit itself, the pardon and release of Ling and Lee, seemed out of character with recent N. Korean posture on it’s nuclear program. To add to it tohugh was the presence at the airport to greet President Clinton of Kim Kye-gwan the N. Korean chief nuclear negotiator. Given the recent posture of N. Korea all these moves seemed like a 180 degree course correction. In the recent past N. Korea withdrew from six-party talks on Nuclear weaponry, later agreed to suspend it’s nuclear program in exchange for aid and other concessions, then conducted underground nuclear tests and medium and long range delivery missile tests.
What it all means is yet to be seen, but one is more justified in being hopeful for a positive resumption of dialogue between the two countries today than one would have been yesterday. Still up in the air though – whether or not president Clinton got any hint on the issue of succession, Kim Yong-Il is just that ill and ageing. Bravo President Clinton for proving that old dog still hunts.
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