There was talk in June about the possibility of sending Gov. Bill Richardson or former Vice President Al Gore to North Korea to negotiate the release of two U.S. journalists who were sentenced to 12 years in labor camps there.
Instead, former President Bill Clinton made what The Associated Press is calling “a surprise trip” to North Korea today “amid an international standoff over the country’s nuclear program and concerns about two U.S. reporters imprisoned in Pyongyang since March.”
Clinton’s visit “comes amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s string of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of U.N. resolutions, and calls from Washington for amnesty for the two reporters,” the article states.