WASHINGTON (AP) – North Korea is not accepting American offers to send a high-level envoy to seek the release of three detained Americans, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.
Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, told The Associated Press that freeing the detainees could provide a diplomatic opening between the nations, also snared by Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons. But he said Washington would not give into attempts to “extort” political gain from the detentions.
North Korea this week sentenced 24-year-old Matthew Miller of Bakersfield, California, to six years hard labor, deepening U.S. concern over the cases. Miller, who according to the court tore up his visa on arrival in Pyongyang in April, was convicted of entering the country illegally to commit espionage. Another trial is expected soon for Jeffrey Fowle, of Miamisburg, Ohio, who was arrested in May for leaving a Bible at a sailor’s club.
The Obama administration has previously offered to send King, initially to seek a pardon for Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary from Lynwood, Washington, who is serving out a 15-year sentence for alleged “hostile acts.” Pyongyang has rejected that.
King would not specify whom the administration was now willing to send. But Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said he has been told by the administration that it has offered in recent weeks to send Glyn Davies, who leads U.S. diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and Pyongyang has not responded favorably.