[classicman]

Will US send envoy after NKorea jails reporters?

The sentencing of two American journalists to 12 years' hard labor in North Korea on Monday sets the stage for possible negotiations with the reclusive nation for their release — perhaps involving an envoy from the United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Obama administration is "pursuing every possible approach that we can consider in order to persuade the North Koreans to release them and send these young women home."

She stressed that the reporters' case and Washington's efforts to punish North Korea for its recent nuclear test are "entirely separate matters."

"We think the imprisonment, trial and sentencing of Laura and Euna should be viewed as a humanitarian matter," Clinton said. "We hope that the North Koreans will grant clemency and deport them."

Pyongyang will likely try to use them as bargaining chips in an increasingly tense standoff with the U.S. over the North's recent nuclear and missile tests.

President Barack Obama "is deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," said deputy White House spokesman William Burton.

Hope, concern... Kim has been doing this shit since I can remember. Newsweek had a great article (I can't find it online) on how he has repeatedly screwed the west "diplomatically."
China must get involved or nothing good is going to come of this. There is no way that diplomacy is going to solve the situation. Kim isn't interested and thats what it will take for it to work.

While it now appears to be only a question of time until an envoy is despatched, the Obama administration is treading carefully.

"If the Obama administration sends an envoy now to negotiate the release of the prisoners, it's highly likely that North Korea will want to discuss everything," Nicholas Szechenyi from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"So that individual, whoever it may be, will have to have something in response to the North Korean demands on the nuclear side."

What are we willing to concede if our ultimate goal in zero nukes? Whatever we offer, Kim sure isn't going to give up on them easily, if at all.

We can predict what will almost certainly follow. The Security Council will, at best, adopt another resolution that won’t be implemented; Russia and China, while expressing “outrage,” will call for a “balanced” approach; the U.S. Special Envoy on North Korea will speak at every opportunity about the need to resume the Talks while the State Department regional bureau will work over time to give Pyongyang what it wants in exchange for returning to the negotiations. For its part, when it determines that it has gone far enough, North Korea may offer a gesture of “good will,” such as freeing the two captive journalists after their show trial for “hostile acts.” And in time, the North will likely pause its reprocessing campaign, perhaps when it runs out of spent fuel rods. The United States will then provide oil and other assistance to get the North back. But back to normal means Pyongyang will be paid even more to stay at the table, while all the time resisting meaningful constraints on its nuclear programs. And then there will be another walk out, another crisis, and the process will start again. I know the playbook, having several times seen the sequence of events unfold from positions in the White House and State Department under President George W. Bush and earlier in a number of policy offices at the Pentagon.

Whatever the administration decides to do, the clock is certainly ticking on this one.