North Korea’s Sudden Change of Heart
This week, two American prisoners in North Korea has been released by the country in thanks to Mr. Obama. The prisoners were Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller. Miller was detained on the grounds of espionage. They reported he came to N. Korea ripped up his tourist visa so that he could experience a prison camp and report about it. Bea was imprisoned on the grounds he committed “hostile acts.”
To help release them, Obama sent a U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to speak with Kim Jong Un. He arrived with a letter from Obama to prove his purpose and identity. But this was actually the final step in the process. They had started the process two weeks ago and called Obama to discuss the terms of release and in that time they asked for a senior official
The U.S. has not given any reason(at the date of the article) as to why they had this sudden change of heart.
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What do you think some reasons might be?
Would this be a first step in having peace with North Korea?
Will there be more correspondence now?
Could this change people's opinion of them?
2 comments:
Unfortunately, the article you linked seems to be behind a paywall. However, from the info I gathered from a similar article I read a month ago, I believe most of the negotiations were started by Sweden, since at the time the U.S. did not hold direct negotiations with North Korea, so they do deserve some recognition.
I believe that the reason for this sudden release of prisoners is simple, and is a tactic North Korea has used before. In my opinion North Korea released these prisoners in order to try to get more aid from Western Nations. They are trying to make Western governments believe that they are loosening up so that more aid will flow in. This is similar to what they do in their annual round of nuclear threats to the U.S., after which the U.S. ends up giving aid. I guess releasing hostages is much better than threats of nuclear war, but hopefully we don't give in to their subtle demands. Also, until North Korea stops its constant Human Rights violations in its labor camps, I doubt many people will change their opinions.
I don't think this is an opening pathway. I think that North Korea just didn't want to deal with the US, so when they got the chance they just wanted to get rid of them. I was truly inspired by the prisoners, especially Kenneth Bae who was able to come out of something so terrible as prison in North Korea, and come out making jokes about his weight. I think the media purposefully skipped telling how North Korea had already started the prisoners release two weeks earlier to make it look like America is strong and we just walked all over them when that is simply not the case.
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