Pres. Obama and Helen Thomas share the same birthday and Ms. Thomas was surprised by the commander-in-chief with birthday cupcakes.
Must Watch: The President's Surprise Birthday Gift for Helen Thomas
At the start of today's White House press briefing, President Obama made a surprise appearance on his birthday -- which he happens to share with White House Correspondent Helen Thomas who turns 89 today. Watch the clip below to see...
North Korea frees U.S. pair: 'Peace-loving'
by Mark Silva
Bill Clinton didn't go to Pyongyang for nothing.
For all the appearances of high-level negotiations over two jailed American journalists created by the surprise visit of the former president to North Korea and Clinton's meeting with leader Kim Jong Il, the speed with which North Korea today announced the pardon and release of the two makes it clear that this was a pre-arranged deal.
The state-run news agency, KCNA, said today that the North Korean leader had pardoned the two after the former president of the United States met with North Korea's top leaders in Pyongyang.
And North Korea was telling the story quickly -- its own way:
"Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it," the news agency reported. "Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.
"The meetings had candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them."
The agency said Clinton had conveyed a message from President Obama "expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries'' -- though the White House was saying nothing about the visit today, and doing its best to keep the talks surrounding the jailed journalists separate from its ongoing dispute with North Korea over nuclear proliferation.
The North Korean agency called the release of the journalists "a manifestation of the DPRK's humanitarian and peace-loving policy.''
While the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" may have shown a different manifest with its repeated test firing of missiles and testing of a nuclear device, word that it was releasing Laura Ling and Euna Lee, both reporters for California-based Current TV, a media venture launched by Clinton's running mate and vice president, Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore, was welcome at the Obama White House and many other homes.
Read all about the way the North Korean deal with Clinton went down, with the report from the Washington Bureau in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:
By Paul Richter
August 5, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- The negotiations that led to former President Clinton's secret mission to North Korea began as soon as two U.S. journalists were seized by the isolated Stalinist state, and have been spurred on by the administration's hope that they might lead to a resumption of gridlocked disarmament talks, according to people close to the process.
The goal was a specific deal: If the United States showed respect by dispatching a high-level emissary to Pyongyang, the North would release journalists Laura Ling and Eun Lee, who were arrested along the border with China on March 17. North Korean media announced today that leader Kim Jong Il had pardoned the pair and ordered their release in response to the visit, Associated Press reported.
"This has been an orchestrated diplomatic process, carefully calibrated in both capitals," said a person who has been close to the exchanges since they began. He asked for anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue.
A large number of respected figures volunteered to be the envoy, including Clinton; former Vice President Al Gore, who is co-founder of the media company that employs the two women; Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.); New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald P. Gregg.
But it became clear that Clinton was the best choice. He presided over a long thaw in relations between the U.S. and North Korea as president in the 1990s and is one of the most important American visitors to the North since his secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, traveled there in 2000.
Clinton was eager for the role. He had been urged to take on the mission in May, when he met in Seoul with Kim Dae Jung, the former South Korean president who had worked with Clinton while both were in office to carry out a "sunshine policy" with the North.
"He was a perfect choice, and a safe choice," said Charles L. Pritchard, a former U.S. negotiator with North Korea. "He'd handled tough North Korea issues before, and he wasn't going to go off and do something that the secretary of State wouldn't like."
Although Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made repeated public appeals for the women's release, the negotiations were handled primarily -- like much of the Obama administration's foreign policy -- by senior White House aides. They included retired Gen. James L. Jones, the national security advisor; Thomas E. Donilon, one of Jones' deputies; and Jeffrey Bader, the top National Security Council expert on the region.
Administration officials wanted to separate the mission as much as possible from politics, in hopes of preventing North Korea from forcing concessions in the 6-year-old nuclear disarmament talks.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted again today that the visit was a private, strictly humanitarian undertaking.
Yet behind the scenes, White House officials kept tight control of the negotiations, said people close to the process. They wanted to be sure that Bill Clinton wouldn't depart for North Korea in a chartered jet unless there was a very good chance that the North Koreans would release the women.
Many Obama officials are skeptical that North Korea officials, who have repeatedly denounced the six-country disarmament talks, will return to the negotiating table. Yet some officials are hoping that the mission could provide the North with a face-saving way to move back toward negotiations.
Those might start, for example, with country-to-country talks between U.S. and North Korean officials, possibly followed later by international negotiations, in a new format if not in the current so-called six-party format. North Korean officials have been eager for one-on-one talks with the Americans, believing they would have a better advantage.
U.S. officials have publicly ruled out any new deal that would reward North Korea for finally doing what the United States and its allies have already paid them for doing, such as dismantling its aging Yongbyon nuclear reactor. But the United States and its partners might be willing to reward Pyongyang if it takes new steps toward disarmament, these sources said.
One of the important messages that the United States sent Pyongyang came July 10, when Hillary Clinton said in a televised public meeting at the State Department that the women and their families had expressed "great remorse" for entering North Korea. She asked Pyongyang to give an "amnesty" to the women.
North Korea sent a positive message back on July 27, when its state-run news agency said Pyongyang might be open to a resumption of dialogue.
"That was a clear, authoritative signal," said the person close to the talks.
Gibbs, the White House press secretary, denied Tuesday that Obama had sent a message with Clinton to be passed on to Kim, the North Korean leader.
But several people close to the talks said that if Obama didn't give Clinton a letter to pass on, the former president certainly will communicate the administration's views. They said they expect he will essentially tell the North Koreans what the administration has been saying publiclythat they should return to negotiations, and will be rewarded if they take additional steps toward giving up their small nuclear arsenal.
Though North Korea's leadership is believed to be embroiled in an internal dispute about who will succeed Kim, the people close to the talks said it was clear that in these communications, Kim, known as "Dear Leader," was still making the key decisions.
A 1994 visit to Pyongyang by former President Carter led to a period of cooperation between the two countries. But Korea specialists said that the success of the mission shouldn't lead to any unrealistic hopes about the chances for a real improvement in U.S.-North Korean relations, which have been in a downward spiral all year.
Gordon Flake, a longtime North Korea specialist at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, said hopes and uncertainties that existed in 1994 have been largely extinguished since by the regime's behavior. Already this year, the North has tested a nuclear weapon, alarmed neighbors by test-firing a series of missiles, and declared that it would never return to the talks.
The environment now "is much more difficult, much more constrained," said Flake. "There are far fewer options."
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar