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Freed US journalist Euna Lee with family - Source: Reuters -
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Two American journalists freed by North Korea tearfully reunited
with their families in the United States on Thursday while
Washington tried to play down talk of a breakthrough with
Pyongyang.
Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, reporters for an American cable
television venture arrived at Burbank airport near Los Angles
aboard a private jet with former President Bill Clinton, who
secured their release after meeting over dinner with North Korea's
reclusive and ailing leader, Kim Jong-il.
President Barack Obama said he was "extraordinarily relieved" at
the women's return but insisted the way for North Korea to improve
relations with the United States was to give up nuclear weapons and
stop its belligerent behavior.
Clinton's dramatic visit was the first high-level US contact with North Korea in nearly a decade.
Despite the mission's success, the drama underlined the fine
line Washington treads to avoid rewarding Pyongyang after repeated
military provocations while trying to coax it into giving up its
ambitions of becoming a nuclear-weapons power.
Critics of North Korea, including Republican Senator John McCain,
accused Kim of using Clinton's visit to enhance his position amid
doubts about his health.
They urged the Obama administration not to sidestep six-nation
negotiations by engaging in direct bilateral talks with North Korea
on ending its nuclear weapons program, a move that worries US
allies South Korea and Japan.
North Korea quit the on-and-off negotiations last year and has
since insisted it will only talk with Washington.
Ling thrust her arms in the air as the two beaming women descended
from the plane to an emotional reunion with their families in an
airport hangar. Lee hugged Hana, the 4-year-old daughter she had
not seen for five months.
Hard labour
Ling said they both feared they could be taken to a hard labour
camp when they were led instead on Wednesday to a location where
Clinton was waiting for them.
"We knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives
was finally coming to an end. Now we stand here home and free," she
told reporters.
The two journalists, who work for Current TV, co-founded by
Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, were arrested on March 17 for
illegally crossing into North Korea from China and had been
reporting on the trafficking of women. They were both sentenced to
12 years of hard labour in June.
Clinton did not speak on arrival, but said in a statement that the
women's families, Gore and the White House had asked him to
undertake the humanitarian mission to Pyongyang.
The former president, who tried unsuccessfully to halt North
Korea's nuclear arms program in the 1990s, spoke briefly with Obama
by telephone and will brief national security officials on his
meeting with Kim, the White House said.
North Korea painted the meeting between Clinton and Kim as
high-level talks the North Korean leader will certainly use to
boost his image at home.
In North Korean media photos, Kim was smiling and looked in
reasonable health after
speculation he was seriously ill
. Some reports have
said Kim may have suffered a stroke last year and is grooming his
youngest son to succeed him.
"I think it'll be very interesting," said McCain. "He's the first
Westerner to see Kim since his reported stroke and other problems.
I think former President Clinton will have some interesting
information."
'No sweeteners'
North Korea's KCNA news agency said Kim issued a special pardon to
the US journalists enabling them to leave. It also reported that
Clinton and Kim agreed their two countries should settle "pending
issues" between them through dialogue.
The Obama administration insisted it had not offered any sweeteners
to North Korea in its nuclear standoff with the West in return for
its release of the journalists, although a senior US official said
Clinton did talk to North Korea's leadership about the "positive
things that could flow" from freeing them.
"We were very clear that this was a humanitarian mission. President
Clinton was going on behalf of the families," Obama said in an
interview with MSNBC television.
"We have said to the North Koreans there's a path for improved
relations and it involves them no longer developing nuclear
weapons, not engaging in provocative behavior."
Clinton's wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said in Nairobi
there was no connection between efforts to free the journalists and
the thorny nuclear issue.
Critics of her husband's mission said Pyongyang had clearly linked
the journalists' case to the nuclear issue by sending its top
negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan, to greet Clinton at the
airport.
Analysts speculated that Clinton's meeting with Kim could open the
way to direct nuclear disarmament talks between Washington and
Pyongyang.
Financial markets in Tokyo and Seoul largely ignored the women's
release, although some South Korean traders said it added a more
positive atmosphere to what had been a string of negative reports
over the North in recent months.
North Korea fired a barrage of short-range missiles in launch
tests in May and exploded a nuclear device on May 25, resulting in
tougher UN sanctions that it has ignored.
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