（韓國‧首爾）美國前總統克林頓今日（週二，8月4日）突然訪問朝鮮，估計此行是為了“英雄救美”，爭取2名被朝鮮拘押的美國女記者獲釋。
據報導，克林頓有可能會見朝鮮最高領導人金正日本人，親自遊說朝方放人。
美國女記者（圖：美聯社）
朝高官到機場接機
據朝鮮中央社報導，克林頓的班機當天飛抵平壤朝鮮順安機場，朝鮮最高人民會議常任委員會副委員長楊亨燮和副外交部長金桂冠前往機場迎接，一名花童還向克林頓獻上鮮花。
克林頓是自美國前總統卡特1994年訪問朝鮮以來，第2位訪問朝鮮的美國前總統，也是繼2000年前國務卿奧爾布賴特之後，訪問朝鮮身份最高的美國官員。
克林頓突然訪問朝鮮，外界推測，他是為解決被朝鮮扣押的2名美國籍亞裔女記者凌志美和李誠恩（前譯李雲娜）的問題。
代表團沒美政府官員
外交消息稱，克林頓的代表團沒有包括美國政府官員。
韓聯社報導，克林頓可能在平壤同朝方官員進行談判，遊說當局釋放2名被定罪判監的美籍華裔和韓裔女記者，而如果朝鮮答應放人，克林頓可能會親自把2人帶回國。
美國國務院至今尚未針對克林頓訪朝事件置評。但克林頓的妻子、國務卿希拉里較早前曾表示，希望朝鮮政府特赦2名女記者。她們3月在朝鮮接壤中國邊境被捕，2人被指非法進入朝鮮，以及犯下重大罪行，7月被判勞改12年。
朝裔教授：美或向朝道歉
一名朝鮮裔美國大學教授7月透露，朝鮮政府表示如果美國方面就凌、李2人非法入境一事做出正式道歉，他們就會釋放這2名記者。
這位姓樸的教授曾以非正式的身份在平壤和華盛頓之間進行過斡旋。
樸教授還說，朝鮮推遲了把這2位女記者送往勞改營的日期，凌志美和李誠恩目前仍然被軟禁在一個招待所內。
Mr. Clinton flew into Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in an unmarked jet early Tuesday morning local time, Central TV, a North Korean station, reported. The White House declined to comment.
Citing television footage from Pyongyang, The Associated Press said Mr. Clinton was greeted at the airport by North Korean officials including the chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and Yang Hyong-sop, vice parliamentary speaker. The footage showed him smiling and bowing as a young girl presented him with flowers.
The reported presence of the nuclear negotiator raised the question of whether talks would range beyond the fate of the two journalists to the broader relationship centering on North Korea’s nuclear program. The journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were detained by soldiers on March 17 near the North Korean border with China. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.”
The Obama administration had been considering for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea.
The choice of Mr. Clinton would mark his first public mission on behalf of the administration. His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.
Mr. Clinton is the first former American president to travel to North Korea since 1994, when Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang — with Mr. Clinton’s half-hearted blessing — to try to strike a deal to suspend the North’s nuclear work in return for concessions from the United States. Ultimately that led to the 1994 nuclear accord, which froze North Korea’s production of plutonium until the deal fell apart in 2003.
As president, Mr. Clinton was initially ambivalent about Mr. Carter’s intervention. But Mr. Carter’s trip also proved that a former president could break a logjam, and Mr. Clinton has some cards to play with the North, because he came close to traveling to the country in December, 2000, the last days of his presidency, in hopes of striking a deal to contain North Korea’s missiles as well. Mr. Clinton decided not to go because the deal was not pre-cooked, and his advisers feared he would be appearing desperate for an end-of-presidency deal.
Relations with the North have descended rapidly since then. Under the Bush administration, the North exited the 1994 agreement, harvested enough plutonium for approximately eight nuclear weapons, and tested one. Mr. Obama never had time to get talks off the ground with the North before it conducted a second nuclear test and terminated the one significant deal it struck with the Bush administration. It is in the process of restarting its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.
The big unknown of this trip is whether Mr. Clinton can also jump-start the broader relationship, at a time of apparent succession struggle in North Korea. It seemed questionable that the North Koreans would allow him to meet the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, who suffered a stroke last summer and appears to be in continued poor health.
In fact, the jailing of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee came amid a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States since Pyongyang tested that second nuclear device in May and then launched several ballistic missiles.
In recent months, the White House has marshaled support at the United Nations for strict sanctions against the North Korean government, including a halt to all weapons sales and a crackdown on its financial ties.
But the administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign separate from this case, which American officials have portrayed as a humanitarian issue, appealing to North Korea to return the women to their families.
“Their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either,” the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said to reporters in June.
At the time they were detained, Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president. They were researching a report about North Korean women sold through human traffickers and refugees who had fled to search for food in China.
The administration initially said the charges against the women were “baseless.” But last month, Mrs. Clinton said the United States was now seeking “amnesty” for the women, signaling a readiness to acknowledge some degree of culpability in return for their freedom.
“The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,” Mrs. Clinton said in early July. “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.”
David Sanger contributed reporting from Aspen, Colo., and Choe Sang-hun contributed from Seoul.By MARK LANDLER and PETER BAKER
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