North Korea raised the stakes in its growing confrontation with Washington yesterday by sentencing two US journalists to 12 years hard labor for “grave crimes.”
The sentence follows US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s warning on Sunday the US was considering putting the North back on its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
Taiwanese-American Laura Ling (凌志美) and Korean-American Euna Lee, of the US media outlet Current TV cofounded by former US vice president Al Gore, were arrested in March working on a story near the border between North Korea and China. Their trial opened on Thursday.
“The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor,” the official KCNA news agency said in a brief dispatch.
US President Barack Obama was “deeply concerned” by the news, the White House said.
“We are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.
Analysts, however, say the women will become pawns in efforts to open direct negotiations with the US.
“[North Korea] is using the sentence as bait to squeeze concessions out of the US amid heightened tension,” said Lee Dong-bok, a senior associate with the CSIS think tank in Seoul and an expert on the North’s negotiating tactics.
The sentences “are tougher than expected,” said Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University.
Meanwhile, Pyongyang threatened to retaliate with “extreme” measures if the UN punished it for last month’s nuclear test.
“Our response would be to consider sanctions against us as a declaration of war and answer it with extreme hardline measures,” the North’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.
The North also issued a no-sail warning off its east coast, up to 260km off the Wonsan area from where it launched a short-range missile last month and a barrage of short-range missiles in 2006.
Japan’s coast guard said it had picked up a North Korean radio signal banning ships from waters off Wonsan near the city of Anbyon from tomorrow to June 30.
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