Bill Clinton arrives in North Korea

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton arrived in North Korea Tuesday in an attempt to obtain the release of two American journalists earn 12 years of hard work.

Clinton arrived in Pyongyang on surprise mission in an unmarked plane and was greeted by several senior officials, including North Korea top nuclear negotiator, Kim kye Gwann.

Analysts have suggested that North Korea's prison of journalist Laura Ling and Euna Lee geared to obtain concessions from the United States in connection with the UN sanctions in the North for its nuclear tests in May.

Ling and Lee, a journalist for the former vice president Al Gore's California-based Current TV, was arrested along North Korean-Chinese border in March to enter the country illegally. They were accused of participating in hostile actions against North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of hard work.

Women can not complain because they were tried in North Korea the highest court, whose decisions are final. Their conviction came in a tense standoff between North Korea and the West after Pyongyang last nuclear weapons test and a series of rocket launches, which has triggered the visit by the international community.
"New phase of negotiations"

"There is a potential for a dramatic reversal of North Korea that could lead to a new phase of negotiations," Yun Duk-min, an official at the Department of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul, told Reuters of the Clinton visit.

Several analysts to suggest that discussions about the release of the journalists would be a Segue to other interviews about the North's nuclear program.

Since U.S. President Barack Obama took office, Pyongyang has expressed interest in one-on-one talks with Washington. The latest provocation was seen partly as a way to draw a concerned United States in bilateral negotiations.

Washington says it is willing to hold such talks with the North, but only within the framework of international disarmament negotiations, in place since 2003. The talks involve China, Japan, the two Korea, Russia and the United States. North Korea has said it will never return to six-nation disarmament process.

Clinton's task is to secure release of two journalists. Neither Washington or Pyongyang has released more information on the status of negotiations.

There has been speculation that Clinton May meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Analysts have said that Kim, 67, is eager to smooth over relations with Washington as he prepares to name a successor.

"When you work with Kim Jong-il in North Korea, and his words can still be allowed. And it's actually possible to sit down and have an important conversation that can change the current path of US-North Korean relations," says Jim Walsh, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In a nuclear standoff with North Korea in 1994, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang and met with leader Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong-il deceased father. Which goes under the Clinton presidency, led to a breakthrough agreement months later.

The last senior American official to meet Kim Jong-il was Madeleine Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, who visited Pyongyang in 2000 in a time of warming relations. Ties turned chilly when George W. Bush took office in the White House in 2001.