Bill Clinton flies to North Korea to seek Americans’ release

Clinton arrived in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, the Yonhap news agency reported early today in Seoul, citing an unidentified source. The White House declined to comment.

The journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were detained by soldiers on March 17 near the North Korean border with China. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years in a prison camp for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.’’

The administration had been debating for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea. The choice of Bill Clinton marks his first public mission on behalf of the Obama administration. His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.

The jailing of Ling and Lee came amid a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States after Pyongyang tested a nuclear device in May and launched a number of missiles. The White House marshaled support at the United Nations for strict sanctions against the North Korean government, including a halt to all weapons sales and a crackdown on its financial ties.

But the administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign separate from this case, which US officials have portrayed as a humanitarian issue, appealing to North Korea to return the women to their families.

“Their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either,’’ the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said to reporters in June.

At the time they were detained, Ling and Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company cofounded by Al Gore, the former vice president. They were researching reports of North Korean women sold through human traffickers and of refugees who fled the North to search for food in China.

The administration initially said the charges against the women were baseless. But last month, Hillary Clinton said the United States was now seeking amnesty for the woman, signaling a readiness to acknowledge some degree of culpability in return for their freedom.

“The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,’’ Hillary Clinton said in early July. “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.’’

Analysts say the communist regime could use the detained reporters as a negotiating card to win concessions.

Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said Bill Clinton’s visit could serve two purposes: securing the women’s release and improving ties between Washington and Pyongyang, which do not have diplomatic relations.

“I think it’s not just about journalists,’’ he said.

The former president commands respect in North Korea because he nearly visited Pyongyang in the waning days of his term and because North Korea’s top military commander, Jo Myong-rok, met with him in Washington in 2000, Victor Cha, a Georgetown professor who advised President George W. Bush on North Korea, told the Washington Post.

“It is entirely possible’’ that no agreement has been set for the journalists’ release, Cha said. “But it would be very difficult for the North not to give these people up’’ to a former US president.

In New York, the Clinton Foundation did not immediately return calls, and Gore’s spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider, said she could not comment.

In California, Lee’s husband, Michael Saldate, declined to comment. A message left for Iain Clayton, Ling’s husband, was not returned yesterday evening.

Bill Clinton would be the second former US president to visit North Korea; Jimmy Carter visited Pyongyang in 1994, when Clinton was in office, and met with then-North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, late father of current leader Kim Jong Il.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.