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Obama thanks Bill Clinton for DPRK mission

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-19 14:44

This file photo taken on August 4, 2009 and released by the DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency shows DPRK leader Kim Jong-il (R) posing with former US president Bill Clinton (L) in Pyongyang. Clinton gave President Barack Obama a tantalizing insider's account of his talks with the DPRK's leader Kim Jong-il and his trip to free two jailed US journalists in Pyongyang. [Agencies]

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama thanked former President Bill Clinton in person on Tuesday for his trip to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) early this month to secure the release of two American journalists, the White House said.

The two men met in the White House Situation Room for nearly 40 minutes, after which Obama invited his fellow Democrat to the Oval Office to talk for another half hour.

"Former President Clinton described the process, including a meeting with Kim Jong-il, that culminated in the North Korean (DPRK) leadership granting 'special amnesty' to the two journalists and permitting them to return to the United States," the White House said in a statement.

"President Obama said he was gratified that the Americans had been safely reunited with their families."

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Clinton left after the meeting without speaking to reporters. His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said his trip had provided insight into the DPRK.

"The briefing that my husband and those who traveled with him ... is, you know, extremely helpful, because it gives us a window into what's going on in North Korea (DPRK)," she told reporters.

In what the Obama administration described as a private humanitarian mission, Bill Clinton traveled to the DPRK to secure the freedom of the two US reporters. He became the highest-level American to meet the DPRK's leader, Kim Jong-il, in almost a decade.

The Obama administration has been trying to coax the DPRK back into six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, while saying it wants to enforce UN resolutions to ensure the DPRK's weapons of mass destruction are not spread.

Pyongyang, which tested a nuclear device in May and has since launched a series of missiles, has said it will not return to the six-party talks and has insisted instead on direct talks with the United States.

The DPRK's media portrayed the trip as proof that the nuclear test and missile launches were a stunning victory that prompted Bill Clinton's visit to pay tribute and negotiate.

But Hillary Clinton said US policy has not changed.

"Our policy is consistent," she said. "We continue to offer to the North Koreans (DPRK) the opportunity to have a dialogue within the six-party talk framework with the United States that we think could offer many benefits to the people of North Korea (DPRK)."