US President Barack Obama has urged North Korea to give up developing nuclear weapons if the country wants better relations with the United States, the BBC reports.
Hours after former US President Bill Clinton had secured the release of the two journalists from Pyongyang, Obama made a speech and said North Korea should not engage “in provocative behaviour”.
In an interview with US TV network MSNBC, the President also said: “We have said to the North Koreans there’s a path for improved relations and it involves them no longer developing nuclear weapons.”
“We just want to make sure the government of North Korea is operating within the basic rules of the international community,” Obama added.
Daniel Sandford, the BBC correspondent in Washington says it appears the two US reporters were used fairly cynically by Pyongyang as pawns in a diplomatic game.
Tensions between the US and North Korea have risen in recent months, as the BBC reports, Pyongyang dropped out of six-party talks on its nuclear ambitions after the UN censured a long-range missile test in April.
Since then the North has also conducted an underground nuclear test and further missile tests, provoking new UN Security Council sanctions.
The two reporters were arrested by North Korea guards in March while filming a video about North Korea refugees for Current TV, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Ms Ling, speaking on behalf of the other journalist arrested with her, said both of them were surprised when they were taken to a meeting and found out Mr Clinton standing there in from of them.
“We were shocked. But we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end,” She said.
Mr Clinton’s unannounced visit to Pyongyang had been described as a private mission but a White House official later confirmed that North Korea had asked him to visit.
A senior US official said President Obama had been aware of the mission from its early stages and that US allies involved in the six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear programme were also informed.
US officials earlier said the North Korean government had agreed in advance that Mr Clinton’s mission would not touch on the question of its nuclear programme.
The reporters now finally will have some “peace and quite” with their family, as they had suffered more than 100 days of nightmare.
The special pardon for the arrested journalists from the North Korea leader Kim Jong-il was described as a signal as the country’s “humanitarian and peace-loving policy”.
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