Obama tight-lipped about Clinton's North Korea visit

Amid talks that former President Bill Clinton's successful visit to North Korea might open up a new door of engagement with the United States, President Barack Obama has said it was just a humanitarian mission to seek the freedom of the two jailed American reporters from the Communist nation.

Led by Obama himself, the White House and the State Department including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had a tough time in responding to questions and queries about whether this could yield in broader engagement between the US and North Korea.

"We were very clear that this was a humanitarian mission. President Clinton was going on behalf of the families to get these young journalists out," Obama told the NBC news channel in an interview. "We have said to the North Koreans there is a path for improved relations, and it involves them no longer developing nuclear weapons and not engaging in the provocative behaviour that they've been engaging in," Obama reiterated.

"So we wish the people of North Korea well; we just want to make sure that the government in North Korea is operating within the basic rules of the international community that they know is expected of them," the US president asserted.

Highly appreciative of the 'extraordinary humanitarian' mission undertaken by the Bill Clinton, Obama said the former US President's "service to this country continues."

Obama, who telephoned Clinton on Wednesday morning to thank him for his endeavour, said he will probably have a discussion with him at some future point. "You know, I suspect that President Clinton will have some interesting observations from his trip, and I will let him provide those to me. I won't speculate," Obama said.

Meanwhile, the State Department spokesperson, Robert Wood, told reporters at his daily press briefing that the United States briefed all its key partners, including China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, before Clinton's trip to North Korea.

"It was a humanitarian mission, plain and simple, and that's all I can tell you. I'll have to refer you to the former President's office for details of his conversation that he had with the North Korean officials," Wood told reporters.

Hillary Clinton, and others in the Obama administration, have been very clear in saying that the US is certainly willing to look at how to bring North Korea back into the good graces of the international community, he said.

"If you remember, we were engaged in the process with the North. We got as far as the North needing to give us some assurances about their commitment to verification -- that they were unwilling to do in written form. And the North took a number of volatile, provocative steps that certainly didn't improve the climate. It seems to have walked away from the six-party talks," he observed.

"We have been encouraging the North and the other members of the international community, which are interested in this issue, have encouraged them to come back. They've yet to do that. We want to see them come back, and we have offered them a path. It's really going to be up to the North to take it," Wood said.

Image: Former US Vice President Al Gore (Centre), along with former US President Bill Clinton (Extreme Left), addresses freed US journalists Laura Ling (third left) and Euna Lee (second right) and their families after the two women arrived from North Korea in Burbank, California.

Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters