CNSNews.com - North Korea May Seek to Use Jailed Americans as Leverage

CNSNews.com - North Korea May Seek to Use Jailed Americans as Leverage

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration stressed Monday that North Korea’s jailing of two American journalists should not be linked to the broader dispute over its nuclear and missile activities, but Pyongyang’s pattern of behavior over many years suggests this is exactly what it intends to do.



Monday’s sentencing of Euna Lee and Laura Ling to 12 years’ imprisonment for an unspecified “grave crime” against the Stalinist state comes at a particularly sensitive time, as the U.S. presses other members of the United Nations Security Council to unite behind punitive steps against North Korea for testing a nuclear bomb two weeks ago.

Amid continued stalling by China and Russia, Washington is pushing for tougher sanctions and the possible interdiction of North Korean ships suspected of carrying nonconventional weapon-related cargoes.

President Obama at the weekend suggested patience was wearing thin and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed the administration was examining a request by Republican lawmakers to return North Korea to the U.S. list of terror-sponsoring states.

For its part, North Korea has threatened “extreme” measures in response to any punishment for its May 25 nuclear test. It is reportedly preparing for yet another long-range ballistic missile test, a step that would ratchet up tensions further.

The administration says the humanitarian question of getting the journalists released and the political and nuclear dispute are two unrelated matters, and State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Monday he would be “very scrupulous” in making no connection between the two.

Both Kelly and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said they were not aware of any indications that the North Koreans planned to use the two American citizens as political pawns or bargaining chips.

Clinton urged North Korea to grant clemency to Lee and Ling, who were detained along the North Korean-Chinese border in March, and to deport them.

“There are other concerns that we and the international community have with North Korea, but those are separate and apart from what’ happening to the two women,” she said.

Whatever the U.S. position on the matter, however, the situation opens up a number of possibilities for Pyongyang, which has a long history of brinkmanship in dealings with the international community.

Speculation has been swirling for days about intervention by a senior envoy – possibly former Vice President Al Gore, co-founder of the television station the journalists were working for, or New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who helped to secure the release of Americans held by North Korea in the 1990s. Kelly declined to comment on the matter, citing the sensitivity of the case.

Visits to Pyongyang in the past by high-level figures, ranging from former President Carter in 1994 to South Korean and Japanese leaders in more recent years, offered North Korea with the opportunity to grant “concessions.”

Carter’s visit laid the groundwork for the Agreed Framework aimed at resolving the nuclear dispute; former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits in 2002 and 2004 helped to lift the lid a little on North Korea’s earlier abductions of Japanese citizens; and visits by two liberal South Korean presidents brought promises of improved inter-Korean relations.

But the “concessions” all came at a price, with North Korea scoring financial and food aid, civilian nuclear reactors and other benefits. Later developments soured ties again. Among them, Pyongyang’s covert uranium enrichment violated the Agreed Framework and saw the deal unravel; Japan demanded a fuller accounting for its kidnapped citizens than Kim Jong-il was prepared to give; and South Koreans elected a conservative president skeptical of his predecessors’ “sunshine” policy of engagement with the North.

‘Break the cycle’

After the nuclear and missile tests, and amid reports of preparations for dynastic succession in Pyongyang, relations between North Korea and the three countries – the U.S., South Korea and Japan – are now arguably at their lowest point since Kim took power following his father's death, a month after Carter’s visit in 1994.

Tensions would grow further if the U.S. restores North Korea to the list of terror-sponsoring states. Delisting was a longstanding North Korean demand, made of both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

President Bush eventually acquiesced eight months ago, in return for progress at the time in the “six-party” nuclear talks. (He also lifted restrictions under the Trading with the Enemy Act although most U.S. sanctions remain in place, including prohibitions against trade and the exporting of dual-use items.)

But movement in the negotiations was short-lived, and by December the six-party process was at a standstill once again.

North Korea experts have seen the pattern repeated over many years.

“By now the cycle is all too predictable,” Ralph Cossa, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Pacific Forum said in an analysis.

“North Korea behaves outrageously. The others provide generous incentives to get it to come back to the table. It returns, reaps the benefits, and then once again behaves outrageously and waits for the incentives to once again be offered. This cycle must be broken.”

Cossa argued that the main task for the U.S. and other concerned parties now was not to persuade Pyongyang to return to the six-way talks, “but to demonstrate that bad behavior has serious, enforceable, and long-lasting consequences.”

“The elimination of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons capabilities will be a multi-stage process,” he said.

“Tightening the noose around Pyongyang to increase the political, military, and economic costs associated with going down the nuclear path is a long overdue vital first step in this process.”