Former United States President Bill Clinton offered very few additional details on Thursday on his trip to retrieve two American journalists who had been captured and detained by North Korea.
Speaking at a Clinton Global Initiative event in New York, his first public appearance since the plane carrying the former president and the two journalists landed in Los Angeles, Clinton said that it would be 'wrong' for him to say anything more about the trip.
"My job was to do one thing, which I was profoundly honoured to do, as an American and as a father. I wanted those young women to be able to come home," Politico quoted Clinton as saying.
"Anything I say beyond that could inadvertently affect the decisions and moods either here or in North Korea, or the attitudes of our allies, and I have no business doing that. I'm not a policymaker anymore," he added.
Clinton said he had spoken briefly about his experience with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his wife. But he said he had not yet fully debriefed either of them or other top government officials.
"It would be wrong for me to say any more. I have an obligation to report to my government and otherwise to say nothing that in any way might tip the balance of any decisions that might, or might not, be made. I just can't do it," he said.
Clinton did offer some details on the return trip back for the two journalists, who he said "were delightful on the plane trip home."
"They were happy, and they tried to sleep and couldn't," the former president said.
Upon landing at an American military base in Japan so that the plane could refuel, Clinton said the two journalists "got their first real, old-fashioned American breakfast."
"They had to be careful, since they had been on a radically different diet for almost five months, to measure their intake," he added. "It was basically a lovely thing."
Meanwhile, the Obama administration clarified that Clinton did not carry any message on behalf of the US government to the North Korean regime.
"I just want to be clear, he was not carrying any message or sending any message on the part of the US government," State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters. Meanwhile, the White House said Obama would soon meet Clinton and mutually convenient dates are being worked out.
"When President Obama spoke with President Clinton, President Obama expressed his desire to get together fairly soon so the two men would have a chance to talk," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
"Right now we're just trying to coordinate the schedules of two rather busy men," he said. Gibbs said the former President is now being debriefed by members of the National Security Council.
