Former US president Bill Clinton urged North Korea to free detained South Koreans and make progress on the issue of abducted Japanese citizens, South Korean and Japanese officials said yesterday.
Clinton made the requests to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during a rare meeting in Pyongyang on Tuesday that secured the freedom of two US journalists detained for 140 days for allegedly entering the North illegally, the officials said.
North Korea has been holding a South Korean worker at a North-South joint industrial zone since late March for allegedly denouncing its regime. Last week, the North also seized a South Korean fishing boat with four fishermen after it accidentally strayed into northern waters.
South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said he understood that Clinton conveyed to Pyongyang that the South Korean worker and fishermen “should be released on humanitarian grounds.”
Moon said South Korea hasn’t heard how the North Koreans reacted.
South Korea said yesterday it had no plan to send a special envoy to the North to try to win their freedom, but it still hopes for their timely release.
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters that “Clinton urged Kim Jong-il to make progress” on the issue of abducted Japanese nationals. He cited an unidentified senior US government official as the source of the information.
In 2002, North Korea admitted to abducting 13 Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s and using them to train spies. North Korea allowed five to return to Japan, saying the other eight had died.
But Tokyo wants a deeper investigation.
Clinton’s trip has rekindled concerns among some in South Korea and Japan that the two countries could be marginalized as Pyongyang favors direct talks with Washington on its nuclear program.
North Korea has quit six-nation disarmament talks and instead recently suggested one-on-one negotiations with Washington to defuse the nuclear tensions.
The US has said it is willing to hold direct talks with Pyongyang — but only on the sidelines of the six-nation nuclear talks consisting of the US, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia.
Moon dismissed concerns about being sidelined, noting the US informed the South that Clinton’s private trip was aimed at securing the freedom of the two US journalists.
Kawamura also stressed that according to the senior US official, Clinton did not discuss North Korea’s nuclear issue with Kim.
The chartered plane Clinton took to North Korea was reportedly lent by Hollywood mogul Steve Bing.
Bing, a Clinton friend and the owner of Shangri-La Entertainment, not only lent his Boeing 737 jet for the mission but also footed an estimated US$200,000 in fuel, catering and other costs, ABC News reported.
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