North Korea again withdraws invitation for US official to visit Kenneth Bae
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Version 0 of 1. North Korea has rescinded an invitation for a senior US official to visit Pyongyang to seek the release of the imprisoned US missionary Kenneth Bae, a State Department official said on Sunday. He also said the civil rights activist Jesse Jackson had offered to go to Pyongyang to try to free Bae. “We are deeply disappointed by the DPRK [North Korean] decision – for a second time – to rescind its invitation for ambassador [Robert] King to travel to Pyongyang to discuss Kenneth Bae’s release. The DPRK announced publicly in May 2013 it would not use the fate of Kenneth Bae as a political bargaining chip,” the official said. “At the request of the Bae family, Reverend Jackson offered to travel to Pyongyang on a humanitarian mission focused on Bae’s release. We support the efforts of the Bae family and Reverend Jackson to bring Bae home,” the official said. The US official referred to US-South Korean (Republic of Korea) military exercises, which North Korea opposes. “We remind the DPRK that the US-ROK military exercises are transparent, regularly scheduled and defence-oriented. These exercises are in no way linked to Mr Bae’s case,” the official said. “We again call on the DPRK to grant Bae special amnesty and immediate release as a humanitarian gesture so he may reunite with his family and seek medical care.” The United States and South Korea will hold their annual joint military drills from 24 February to 18 April, the combined forces command that oversees the allies said, adding it had notified Pyongyang of the plan. The official said the US remained prepared to send King to North Korea to seek Bae’s release. Jackson could not immediately be reached and his office did not respond to requests for comment. Bae, a 45-year-old Korean-American, has been held for more than a year in North Korea after being sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour on charges of trying to overthrow the state. The State Department said on Friday that Bae had been moved from a hospital back to a labour camp on 20 January, the same day he made a public appeal for Washington to help get him home. North Korea rejected an offer for King, the US special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, to visit Pyongyang to discuss Bae’s case in August. Bae said in an interview with a pro-North Korea newspaper published in Japan last week that a Swedish embassy official had visited him on Friday and told him King would visit as early as Monday and by the end of the month at the latest. Bae told the Choson Sinbo newspaper the United States had offered to send Jackson, but North Korea had instead approved the visit by King. Bae’s sister, Terri Chung, told Reuters on Friday that Bae had been held in a labour camp from 14 May until 5 August, when he was moved to the hospital. She said the family did not know where the camp was, except that it was far from Pyongyang and Bae was working eight hours a day, six days a week. Chung said her brother suffered from a variety of health problems, including diabetes, an enlarged heart, kidney stones and severe back pain and that his family was very concerned about his health. Bae has acknowledged being a missionary and has said he conducted religious services in the North, which as long been hostile to Westerners advocating religious causes. |