US calls for NKorea amnesty for sentenced American

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. called Thursday for North Korea to grant amnesty and immediately release a Korean-American sentenced to 15 years' hard labor for "hostile acts" against the state.

Kenneth Bae, 44, a Washington state man described by friends as a devout Christian and a tour operator, is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009. The others eventually were deported or released without serving out their terms, some after trips to Pyongyang by prominent Americans, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Analysts say Bae's sentencing could be an effort by Pyongyang to win diplomatic concessions in the ongoing standoff over its nuclear program. But there was no immediate sign a high-profile envoy was about to make a clemency mission to the isolated nation which has taken an increasingly confrontational stance under its young leader Kim Jong Un.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. was still seeking to learn the facts of Bae's case. He said the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, which handles consular matters there for the U.S., did not attend Tuesday's Supreme Court trial and that there hasn't been transparency in the legal proceedings.

"There's no greater priority for us than the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad, and we urge the DPRK authorities to grant Mr. Bae amnesty and immediate release," Ventrell told a news conference, referencing the socialist country's formal title, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North Korea has faced increasing international criticism over its weapons development. Six-nation disarmament talks involving the Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia fell apart in 2009. Several rounds of U.N. sanctions have not encouraged the North to give up its small cache of nuclear devices, which Pyongyang says it must not only keep but expand to protect itself from a hostile Washington. Tensions have escalated since it conducted its third nuclear test since 2006 in February.

Pyongyang's tone has softened somewhat recently, following weeks of violent rhetoric, including threats of nuclear war and missile strikes. There have been tentative signs of interest in diplomacy, and a major source of North Korean outrage — annual U.S.-South Korean military drills — ended Tuesday.

Patrick Cronin, a senior analyst with the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, called Bae's conviction "a hasty gambit to force a direct dialogue with the United States."

"While Washington will do everything possible to spare an innocent American from years of hard labor, U.S. officials are aware that in all likelihood the North Korean regime wants a meeting to demonstrate that the United States in effect confers legitimacy on the North's nuclear-weapon-state status," Cronin said in an email.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One en route to Mexico that if North Korea is interested in discussion, they should live up to their obligations under the six-party talks.

"Thus far, as you know, they have flouted their obligations, engaged in provocative actions and rhetoric that brings them no closer to a situation where they can improve the lot of the North Korean people or re-enter the community of nations," Carney said.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency announcement of Bae's sentencing came just days after it reported Saturday that authorities would soon indict and try him. It referred to Bae as Pae Jun Ho, the North Korean spelling for his Korean name. The State Department had appealed Monday for his release on humanitarian grounds.

Bae, from Lynnwood, Wash., was arrested in early November in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea's far northeastern region bordering China and Russia, state media said. The exact nature of Bae's alleged crimes has not been revealed.

"Kenneth Bae had no access to a lawyer. It is not even known what he was charged with," the human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement. "Kenneth Bae should be released, unless he is charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offense and retried by a competent, independent and impartial court."

Ventrell said the Swedish embassy's most recent access to Bae was last Friday. It has only had a handful of brief opportunities to see him since he was arrested in early November, according to U.S. officials.

Friends and colleagues say Bae was based in the Chinese border city of Dalian and traveled frequently to North Korea to feed orphans. Bae's mother in the United States did not answer calls seeking comment Thursday.

There are parallels to a case in 2009. After Pyongyang's launch of a long-range rocket and its second underground nuclear test that year, two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor after sneaking across the border from China.

They later were pardoned on humanitarian grounds and released to Clinton, who met with then-leader Kim Jong Il. U.S.-North Korea talks came later that year.

In 2011, Carter visited North Korea to win the release of imprisoned American Aijalon Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for crossing illegally into the North from China.

On Thursday, Carter's press secretary, Deanna Congileo, said by email that the former president has not had an invitation to visit North Korea and has no plans to visit.

Korean-American Eddie Jun was released in 2011 after Robert King, the U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, traveled to Pyongyang. Jun had been detained for half a year over an unspecified crime.

Jun and Gomes are also devout Christians. While the North Korean Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated by the government.

U.N. and U.S. officials accuse North Korea of treating opponents brutally. Foreign nationals have told varying stories about their detentions in North Korea.

The two journalists sentenced to hard labor in 2009 stayed in a guest house instead of a labor camp due to medical concerns.

Ali Lameda, a member of Venezuela's Communist Party and a poet invited to the North in 1966 to work as a Spanish translator, said that he was detained in a damp, filthy cell without trial the following year after facing espionage allegations that he denied. He later spent six years in prison after a one-day trial, he said.

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Kim reported from Seoul. Associated Press writers Lou Kesten and Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.

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US preparing for possible further NKorea actions

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — The top U.S. military officer said Sunday the Pentagon had bolstered its missile defenses and taken other steps because he "can't take the chance" that North Korea won't soon engage in some military action.

Heightened tensions with North Korea led the United States to postpone congressional testimony by the chief U.S. commander in South Korea and delay an intercontinental ballistic missile test from a West Coast base.

North Korea, after weeks of war threats and other efforts to punish South Korea and the U.S. for joint military drills, has told other nations that it will be unable to guarantee diplomats' safety in the North's capital beginning Wednesday.

U.S. Gen Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who just wrapped up a visit to Afghanistan, was asked in an Associated Press interview whether he foresees North Korea taking military action soon.

"No, but I can't take the chance that it won't," he said, explaining why the Pentagon has strengthened missile defenses and made other decisions to combat the potential threat.

Dempsey said the U.S. has been preparing for further provocations or action, "considering the risk that they may choose to do something" on one of two nationally important anniversaries in April — the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and the creation of the North Korean army.

U.S. Gen. James Thurman, the commander of the 28,000 American troops in South Korea, will stay in Seoul as "a prudent measure" rather than travel to Washington to appear this coming week before congressional committees, Army Col. Amy Hannah said in an email Sunday to the AP.

Thurman has asked the Senate Armed Services Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense to excuse his absence until he can testify at a later date.

Dempsey said he had consulted with Thurman about the rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Dempsey said both Thurman and South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Jung Seung-jo, decided it would be best for them to remain in Seoul rather than come to Washington. The Korean general had planned to meet with Dempsey, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, in mid-April for regular talks.

Dempsey said that instead of meeting in person with Thurman and Jung in Washington, they will consult together by video-teleconference.

The Pentagon has postponed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that was set for the coming week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a senior defense official told the AP on Saturday.

The official said U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to put off the long-planned Minuteman 3 test until April because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis. Hagel made the decision Friday, the official said.

North Korea's military said this past week that it was authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. North Korea also conducted a nuclear test in February and in December launched a long-range rocket that could potentially hit the continental U.S.

The U.S. has moved two of the Navy's missile-defense ships closer to the Korean peninsula, and a land-based system is being deployed to the Pacific territory of Guam later this month. The Pentagon last month announced longer-term plans to strengthen its U.S.-based missile defenses.

The defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the Minuteman 3 test delay and requested anonymity, said U.S. policy continues to support the building and testing of its nuclear deterrent capabilities. The official said the launch was not put off because of any technical problems.

Dempsey said he was not familiar with details of the Minuteman decision because he was traveling in Afghanistan.

But, he said, "it would be consistent with our intent here, which is to do what we have to do to posture ourselves to deter (North Korea), and to assure our allies. So things that can be delayed should be delayed."

A South Korean national security official said Sunday that North Korea may be setting the stage for a missile test or another provocative act.

Citing North Korea's suggestion that diplomats leave the country, South Korean President Park Geun-hye's national security director said the North may be planning a missile launch or another provocation around Wednesday, according to presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing.

In Washington, an adviser to President Barack Obama said "we wouldn't be surprised if they did a test. They've done that in the past."

Aide Dan Pfeiffer told ABC's "This Week" that "the key here is for the North Koreans to stop their actions, start meeting their international obligations, and put themselves in a position where they can achieve what is their stated goal, which is economic development, which will only happen if they rejoin the international community."

He told "Fox News Sunday" that "the onus is on the North Koreans to do the right thing here," adding that "they are the source of the problem and the only way to solve this is for them to take a step back."

If they don't, there will be consequences, Pfeiffer said.

"They will be able to further isolate themselves in the world, they will continue to further hurt themselves. The North Korean people are starving because of actions like the ones North Koreans are taking right now."

U.S. Sen. John McCain said the North's young leader, Kim Jong Un, is playing a game of brinksmanship.

"In the past we have seen this repetitious confrontation, negotiation, incentives to North Korea to better behave, hopes that they will abandon their nuclear quest — which they never will, otherwise, they'd be totally irrelevant," McCain told CBS' "Face the Nation."

"And so we've seen the cycle over and over and over again, for last 20 or 30 years. They confront. There's crisis. Then we offer them incentives — food, money. While meanwhile the most repressive and oppressive regime on earth continues to function," he added.

McCain said China "does hold the key to this problem. China can cut off their economy if they want to."

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Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Philip Elliott and Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report.

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Kerry warns NKorea on 'reckless' provocations

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday warned North Korea to halt a recent spate of rhetoric and actions, calling them provocative, dangerous and reckless. He also vowed that the United States would defend itself and its allies South Korea and Japan from North Korean threats.

Kerry's comments came after North Korea ratcheted up an almost daily string of threats toward the three nations with an announcement that it would revive a long-dormant nuclear reactor and ramp up production of atomic weapons material.

Speaking to reporters at a joint news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Kerry said the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK, knows that the U.S. is fully prepared and capable of defending itself and its allies.

"The bottom line, very simply, is that what Kim Jong-Un has been choosing to do is provocative, it is dangerous, reckless, and the United States will not accept the DPRK as a nuclear state," Kerry said, referring to North Korea's young new leader.

A North Korean official said the country would quickly begin "readjusting and restarting" the facilities at its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex, including the plutonium reactor and a uranium enrichment plant. It had been shuttered as part of international nuclear disarmament talks in 2007 that have since stalled.

Kerry said such a step would be "a direct violation" of North Korea's international commitments and a "very serious step."

"It would be a provocative act and completely contrary to the road we have traveled for all these years," he said.

Still, both Kerry and his South Korean counterpart said the door remained open for North Korea to return to multi-national nuclear disarmament talks.

Yun said those talks remain a "useful tool" for getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, although he conceded it would be a very difficult task. "We should continue these efforts," he said.

"If North Korea decides to give up its nuclear ambitions and to become a member of the international community, we are prepared to resume talks" for peace on the Korean Peninsula, he said.

Yun said South Korean President Park Geun-hye is open to building a trusting relationship with North Korea but that Seoul would respond to provocations from Pyongyang. It was critical that the U.S. and South Korea continue to enhance their defense capabilities, he said.

The White House said President Barack Obama's entire national security team was focused on North Korea, although some U.S. officials did cast doubt on whether North Korea would follow through on its threat to restart the reactor, portraying the latest threat as part of a pattern of antagonistic taunts that, so far, have not been backed up by action.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that development would be "extremely alarming" but added: "There's a long way to go between a stated intention and actually being able to pull it off."

Still, the Pentagon suggested the administration is concerned about the prospect for further escalation of tensions and it has made a conspicuous display of firepower in recent weeks, sending B-52 and B-2 bombers on practice runs over South Korea, as well as deploying F-22 stealth fighters and repositioning a missile-defense ship off the Korean coast.

These moves and others are meant to deter North Korea from launching even a limited military strike against the South, while also offering reassurance to Seoul that the U.S. will stick to its treaty obligation to defend the South against attack.

"We are looking for the temperature to be taken down," Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters. "We are in the business of assuring our South Korean allies that we will help defend them in the face of threats."

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney called on Russia and China, two countries he said have influence with North Korea, to use that influence to persuade the North to change course.

North Korea's recent tide of nuclear vows and aggressive threats are seen as efforts to force Washington into disarmament-for-aid talks and to boost Kim Jong Un's stature as a strong military leader. Pyongyang has reacted angrily to U.S.-South Korean military drills and a new round of U.N. and U.S. sanctions that followed North Korea's Feb. 12 underground nuclear test.

Although world leaders have largely shrugged off the threats as more of the same from North Korea, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that the North appears to be "on a collision course with the international community," adding that the current crisis has gone too far.

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AP National Security Writer Robert Burns and Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report.

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