Seoul Informed of Clinton’s North Korea Visit Last Week
By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
Cheong Wa Dae denied reports Wednesday that the United States failed to discuss former U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Pyongyang with South Korea, saying it had the information last week.
``It is not true that the United States failed to inform us of Clinton's North Korea visit,'' a presidential office official said on condition of anonymity. ``Seoul and Washington have discussed sending a senior U.S. diplomat to Pyongyang for the past few weeks. The allies shared the information about Clinton's visit last week.''
The official said South Korean officials explained the North's detention of a South Korean worker and a fishing boat to Clinton prior to his Pyongyang visit, adding the issues may have been raised at talks between Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Clinton departed Pyongyang with two female American journalists Wednesday after Kim granted a special pardon to the reporters. Laura Ling and Euna Lee had been detained since mid-March for illegally entering North Korea.
North Korea has also detained an employee of Hyundai Asan, the developer of the industrial complex in the North's border town of Gaeseong. He was seized for allegedly criticizing the north's political system and trying to tempt a North Korean female employee to defect.
Seoul has demanded inter-Korean talks on the release of the worker, but the efforts have made little headway due to tensions over the North's nuclear and missile tests. Pyongyang has refused to allow South Korean officials and lawyers to see the worker.
A South Korean fishing boat with four crewmembers on board was seized by a North Korean patrol boat in late July after it strayed into North Korean waters off the east coast. South Korea asked North Korea to immediately release the detained fishermen, but the North said it would decide on this after conducting an investigation.
Critics say the South Korean government has not been active in resolving the two cases, compared with the U.S. government's response to the two journalists.
``We are watching closely how the pardon for the two U.S. journalists will affect the two detention cases,'' said Lee Jong-joo, a spokesman of the Ministry of Unification. ``North Korea has freed the U.S. journalists, but rejected talks on the release of South Koreans. This is not fair.''