North Korea has apparently stepped back from allowing Ambassador Robert
King, the U.S.’ special envoy for North Korean human rights
issues, to visit Pyongyang to secure the release of detained American citizen Kenneth
Bae, according to the U.S. State Department.
A State Department
official was widely reported as saying on Sunday, “We are deeply
disappointed by the [North Korean] decision – for a second time – to rescind
its invitation for Ambassador King to travel to Pyongyang to discuss Kenneth
Bae’s release.”
Chosun Sinbo, a
pro-North Korea newspaper based in Japan, recently interviewed Bae, who had
apparently been told by the Swedish Embassy, which represents the United States
in North Korea, to expect King as early as Monday, February 10th and by the end
of the month at the latest. Bae also told the Chongryon publication that the
United States had offered to send civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson to
secure his release, but that Pyongyang had approved Robert King.
At a Pyongyang news
conference on January 20th, Bae confessed to his crimes in broad terms and
announced that he had not been badly treated by the North Korean authorities. “I
believe that my problem can be solved by close cooperation and agreement
between the American government and the government of this country,”
he said.
On Thursday,
President Barack Obama expressed concern at the annual National Prayer
Breakfast in Washington, D.C. “We pray for Kenneth Bae, a Christian
missionary who has been held in North Korea for 15 months,”
Obama said. “His family wants him home, and the United States will continue to do
everything in our power to secure his release because Kenneth Bae deserves to
be free.”
The reason for the
cancellation of King’s mission has not been clarified, but there
is the widespread suspicion that it may be a strategic choice relating to joint U.S.-ROK
military exercises, which are to go ahead as planned later this month in the
face of concerted North Korean opposition. A previous plan for King to visit
North Korea in August 2013 was also cancelled after B-52 strategic bombers flew
over the Korean Peninsula.
“The strategic bombers’ intrusion into the air over the Korean
Peninsula is the most blatant nuclear blackmail against us and a military
threat to us,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs asserted at that time. “It is the most striking manifestation of the
offensive and aggressive nature of the joint military drills.”
