North Korea 'playing high-stakes poker game'

(Getty Images)

Former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson today called the detention and sentencing of two young women journalists in North Korea part of "a high-stakes poker game."

But at the same time, the New Mexico governor said in a nationally broadcast interview that the time might be right for the United States to work out the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee with the country's leaders in Pyongyang.

The pair was sentenced to 12 years in prison by North Korea. The North's state new agency said a court found them guilty of a "grave crime" against the nation and of illegally crossing into North Korea and that they were sentenced to 12 years of "reform through labor."

"It is harsher than expected," Richardson said in an interview this morning on NBC's "Today" show.

But at the same time, Richardson, who was instrumental in negotiating the release of US citizens from North Korea in an incident in the 1990s, said "the good thing is that there is no charge of espionage." He also said now that the legal process has been completed, he thinks negotiations for their "humanitarian release" can begin.

At the White House today, deputy spokesman William Burton said in a statement: "The president is deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release."

Richardson said officials of the Obama administration had been in contact with him for his thoughts on how to proceed.

"This is a high-stakes poker game," he said. " ... In previous instances where I was involved in negotiating, you could not get this started until the legal process had ended."

Richardson, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination last year said he thought there were some positive signs of prospects for Ling's and Lee's release.

He said that North Korea so far has not, at least publicly, tried to tie this incident to differences with Washington over its nuclear program and the recent series of missile tests that it has conducted. He also said he has not seen particularly bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang on the issue of the two women held there.

Richardson said he has talked to the families of the two journalists, but he also said talk of negotiations at this juncture is "premature" because a framework for such discussions would have to first be established.

"What we would try to seek," he said, "is some (kind of) political pardon, some sort of respite from political proceedings."