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Detained American’s Mother Visits Him in North Korea Detained American’s Mother Visits Him in North Korea
(about 7 hours later)
The mother of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American who is being held in North Korea and is in failing health, visited him in a Pyongyang hospital on Friday and told Japan’s Kyodo News agency that his condition appeared to have improved. The mother of Kenneth Bae, an American Christian missionary serving a 15-year term of hard labor in North Korea’s penal system, visited him for 90 minutes in a “very emotional reunion” on Friday at a Pyongyang hospital where he has been convalescing since the summer because of poor health and severe weight loss, Mr. Bae’s sister reported on Friday.
The mother, Myunghee Bae, 69, was permitted by the North Korean authorities to enter the country on Thursday for a five-day stay after her repeated requests to see her son, who has been held for nearly a year. It was unclear whether her visit signaled that the North Koreans were preparing to release him. The sister, Terri Chung, who has become a spokeswoman for the family in the year since Mr. Bae was first detained in North Korea, said she interpreted the North Korean government’s agreement to allow the visit as a positive signal that could foreshadow a decision to release him. But Ms. Chung also tempered her optimism.
Mr. Bae, 45, a tour operator who did Christian missionary work, was detained last November as he entered the port city of Rason. Although North Korea officially says it guarantees religious freedom, human rights activists have long said that the North suppresses Christianity. “Any time there’s any kind of positive engagement about Kenneth from inside the DPRK, we’re really excited,” Ms. Chung said in a telephone interview from her home in Edmonds, Wash., using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the formal name for North Korea. “It’s not necessarily a sign of his release, but we’re hopeful.”
Mr. Bae was eventually convicted of hostile acts against the country, a serious crime in North Korea, and was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor last May, adding a new irritant to the chronically antagonistic relationship between North Korea and the United States. Their mother, Myunghee Bae, 69, arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday in a previously unannounced trip arranged through the Embassy of Sweden, which conducts consular affairs for the United States in North Korea. She had been beseeching the North Korean authorities to allow her to see Mr. Bae, 45, who was hospitalized in August.
Televised images of him toiling at a prison camp, appearing sickly and tired, traumatized Mr. Bae’s family in his home state of Washington, which has undertaken a publicity campaign calling on the North Korean authorities to free Mr. Bae as a humanitarian gesture. Within a few months of his sentencing, he was hospitalized for ailments that included diabetes, an enlarged heart and chronic back pain. Ms. Chung said she could not communicate with her mother while she was in North Korea but had received a briefing on the visit to the hospital via the Swedish Embassy, which had communicated the information to State Department officials who have been closely following Mr. Bae’s case.
“I saw him at the hospital,” Mr. Bae’s mother was quoted as telling Kyodo in a dispatch from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. “His condition seems to be all right, not good, but seems much better.” “It was a very emotional reunion between mother and son,” Ms. Chung said.
Her trip was brokered by Sweden’s Embassy, which has represented American interests in Mr. Bae’s case on Washington’s behalf. She also reported that Mr. Bae had regained 15 pounds in the hospital, looked better physically and that “his test results have shown improvements.”
The Bae family first disclosed the mother was in North Korea on Thursday, apparently worried that any advance publicity might cause the reclusive and unpredictable North Korean government to cancel the visit. Once she had safely arrived, the family posted a video of her explaining the purpose of the trip on a Web site created to advocate for Mr. Bae’s release. The mother, who brought Mr. Bae family photographs, granola bars, trail mix, chocolate and beef jerky, has been promised two more visits before she departs on Monday, Ms. Chung said.
North Korea’s state-run news media had not reported the visit as of Friday. The Chosun Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper based in Japan that was given access to the reunion, transmitted a photograph showing the mother comforting her son, who was shown sitting a chair dressed in blue-striped pajamas.
Mr. Bae’s sister, Terri Chung, said Thursday night in a telephone interview that the family had received little information on his health in recent months, which was among the reasons their mother had been so insistent on seeing him. Mr. Bae, a Christian missionary who had been operating tours of North Korea from China, was detained last November in the port of Rason. He was sent to a labor camp in May after he was tried and sentenced for what the North Korean authorities called hostile acts against the government through his proselytizing. Afflicted with maladies that include diabetes, an enlarged heart and chronic back pain, he lost 50 pounds, the family has said.
In August, the United States was prepared to send a senior diplomat to try to secure Mr. Bae’s release, but North Korea rescinded its invitation at the last minute. His incarceration has added to the list of obstacles in easing the antagonistic relationship between the United States and North Korea, which have technically remained in a state of war since the armistice that halted the Korean War 60 years ago. The antipathy reached a new level earlier this year, with the North’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, grandson of the country’s cultish founder, Kim Il-sung, threatening to attack the United States with nuclear weapons.
The North Koreans have repeatedly sent contradictory messages about their intentions for Mr. Bae, sometimes dropping hints his freedom could be negotiated, sometimes the opposite. They abruptly revoked an invitation to Robert King, a senior American diplomat, on Aug. 30 as he was about to visit with the intention of seeking Mr. Bae’s release.
Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor who has been on diplomatic missions to North Korea eight times, interpreted the North’s decision to allow the mother to visit Mr. Bae as signal they are ready to negotiate his release. “They obviously want to lower the temperature with the United States,” he said in a telephone interview.
“This is a path forward, possibly toward some contact with American officials,” he said. At the same time, he added the caution that “the North Koreans are excellent at mixed and confusing signals.”