Costs of War: Clinton’s Back Door Diplomacy
By Shaun Waterman for ISN
Some commentators are hailing the surprise visit by Clinton as a possible turning point in relations with Pyongyang, which have continued to deteriorate since North Korea tested an atomic bomb and ballistic missiles earlier this year, and pulled out of the international Six Party talks aimed at getting the communist regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
“The visit runs against the dominant tone” of relations, noted Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations. “We'll have to wait and see if it enables a real change in approach by [North Korea], or by the United States, in terms of how to deal with the nuclear issue.”
Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested 17 March on the China-North Korean frontier while on assignment for former vice president Al Gore’s cabel broadcast channel Current TV. After confessing to illegally crossing the border, they were sentenced to 12 years hard labor, but were released last week after just 140 days in a Pyongyang guest house, following a three-and-a-half hour dinner meeting between Clinton and President Kim.
Despite the apparent drama - Clinton Foundation officials in touch with the former president would not confirm that the two had been freed until they were in international airspace - it is now clear that the terms of their release were not only agreed in advance through back-channel contacts with Pyongyang, but actually set by the North Korean regime.
The idea for the trip was first raised in mid-July in a phone call from the two jailed journalists to their families. “The North Koreans implied that if former president Clinton were to take on this mission, they would guarantee the release of the two girls,” said retired Marine Gen James Jones, US President Barack Obama’s national security advisor.
Jones added that US officials “received a personal assurance [from] the [North Korean] leader that they would grant, in their terms, special amnesty, and that if former president Clinton came to North Korea that he would leave with those two girls.”
Jones and other US officials who appeared on the weekend political talk shows in Washington were keen to stress that this was a private humanitarian mission and that Clinton carried no message from Obama to Pyongyang. They could hardly do otherwise, given that the US has repeatedly ruled out bilateral contacts with North Korea except in the context of the Six Party talks.
They were also keen to stress that the visit had been vetted in advance by the other nations involved in the Six Party talks - China, Russia, South Korea and Japan - and that, perhaps as a result, Clinton had raised the issue of South Korean and Japanese prisoners held by Pyongyang, too.
The visit “in no way changes our policy or approach to North Korea” US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told CNN. “The ball is in their court.”
And yet, Clinton and his entourage - including his former White House chief of staff John Podesta, who led Clinton administration policy on North Korea - were given all the trappings of a state visit. They were met at the airport by Pyongyang’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan, effectively scotching, as Snyder noted, rumors that he was out of favor with the regime leadership.
Snyder added that Kim’s presence “certainly does suggest that the [North Korean leadership] was prepared to talk about issues beyond the release of the two journalists.”
Jones actually confirmed that there were discussions about the nuclear issue, although he stressed that whatever former president Clinton had conveyed were “his own, his personal views.”
Clinton-era energy secretary Bill Richardson, now New Mexico governor, external pagepointed out that Pyongyang has long wanted direct talks with the US and that the visit gave them, if nothing more, the appearance of such contacts.
“This is what the North Koreans get […]. They get the fact that the United States sent a very high-level emissary to talk to them.”
Rice stressed that any bilateral contacts would have to come in the context of the Six Party process.
“They need to uphold their international obligations [and] return to the Six Party talks. In that context, we have said that we would be prepared to have a direct dialogue, as was the case during the Bush administration,” she said.
But nonetheless, the trip brought immediate comparisons to the June 1994 visit to Pyongyang by another former president, Jimmy Carter. Within four months of that trip, North Korea and the US had signed the so-called Agreed Framework, under which Pyongyang agreed to give up a nuclear program based on uranium - which can be reprocessed into plutonium - in return for non-uranium-based light water reactors and a supply of heavy fuel oil.
In 2002, North Korea was discovered to have been secretly re-processing uranium in violation of the Agreed Framework, which quickly became a poster child for hawks suspicious of such deals with rogue states.
Nonetheless, Hilary Clinton, US secretary of state and the former president’s wife, seemed to imply that a comparable outcome might be possible as a result of her husband’s visit.
“Obviously, what we’re hoping is that maybe without it being part of the mission in any way, the fact that this was done will perhaps lead the North Koreans to recognize that they can have a positive relationship with us,” she told CNN.
“The visit runs against the dominant tone” of relations, noted Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations. “We'll have to wait and see if it enables a real change in approach by [North Korea], or by the United States, in terms of how to deal with the nuclear issue.”
Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested 17 March on the China-North Korean frontier while on assignment for former vice president Al Gore’s cabel broadcast channel Current TV. After confessing to illegally crossing the border, they were sentenced to 12 years hard labor, but were released last week after just 140 days in a Pyongyang guest house, following a three-and-a-half hour dinner meeting between Clinton and President Kim.
Despite the apparent drama - Clinton Foundation officials in touch with the former president would not confirm that the two had been freed until they were in international airspace - it is now clear that the terms of their release were not only agreed in advance through back-channel contacts with Pyongyang, but actually set by the North Korean regime.
The idea for the trip was first raised in mid-July in a phone call from the two jailed journalists to their families. “The North Koreans implied that if former president Clinton were to take on this mission, they would guarantee the release of the two girls,” said retired Marine Gen James Jones, US President Barack Obama’s national security advisor.
Jones added that US officials “received a personal assurance [from] the [North Korean] leader that they would grant, in their terms, special amnesty, and that if former president Clinton came to North Korea that he would leave with those two girls.”
Jones and other US officials who appeared on the weekend political talk shows in Washington were keen to stress that this was a private humanitarian mission and that Clinton carried no message from Obama to Pyongyang. They could hardly do otherwise, given that the US has repeatedly ruled out bilateral contacts with North Korea except in the context of the Six Party talks.
They were also keen to stress that the visit had been vetted in advance by the other nations involved in the Six Party talks - China, Russia, South Korea and Japan - and that, perhaps as a result, Clinton had raised the issue of South Korean and Japanese prisoners held by Pyongyang, too.
The visit “in no way changes our policy or approach to North Korea” US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told CNN. “The ball is in their court.”
And yet, Clinton and his entourage - including his former White House chief of staff John Podesta, who led Clinton administration policy on North Korea - were given all the trappings of a state visit. They were met at the airport by Pyongyang’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan, effectively scotching, as Snyder noted, rumors that he was out of favor with the regime leadership.
Snyder added that Kim’s presence “certainly does suggest that the [North Korean leadership] was prepared to talk about issues beyond the release of the two journalists.”
Jones actually confirmed that there were discussions about the nuclear issue, although he stressed that whatever former president Clinton had conveyed were “his own, his personal views.”
Clinton-era energy secretary Bill Richardson, now New Mexico governor, external pagepointed out that Pyongyang has long wanted direct talks with the US and that the visit gave them, if nothing more, the appearance of such contacts.
“This is what the North Koreans get […]. They get the fact that the United States sent a very high-level emissary to talk to them.”
Rice stressed that any bilateral contacts would have to come in the context of the Six Party process.
“They need to uphold their international obligations [and] return to the Six Party talks. In that context, we have said that we would be prepared to have a direct dialogue, as was the case during the Bush administration,” she said.
But nonetheless, the trip brought immediate comparisons to the June 1994 visit to Pyongyang by another former president, Jimmy Carter. Within four months of that trip, North Korea and the US had signed the so-called Agreed Framework, under which Pyongyang agreed to give up a nuclear program based on uranium - which can be reprocessed into plutonium - in return for non-uranium-based light water reactors and a supply of heavy fuel oil.
In 2002, North Korea was discovered to have been secretly re-processing uranium in violation of the Agreed Framework, which quickly became a poster child for hawks suspicious of such deals with rogue states.
Nonetheless, Hilary Clinton, US secretary of state and the former president’s wife, seemed to imply that a comparable outcome might be possible as a result of her husband’s visit.
“Obviously, what we’re hoping is that maybe without it being part of the mission in any way, the fact that this was done will perhaps lead the North Koreans to recognize that they can have a positive relationship with us,” she told CNN.