US President Barack Obama on Wednesday hailed the “extraordinary” work by former US president Bill Clinton in securing the release of two US journalists from North Korea. “We are, obviously, extraordinarily relieved,” Obama told reporters at the White House, following the arrival in California of television journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. “The reunion that we've all seen on television I think is a source of happiness, not only for the families, but for the entire country,” Obama said. “I want to thank President Bill Clinton -- I had a chance to talk to him – for the extraordinary humanitarian effort that resulted in the release of the two journalists,” Obama said. “All Americans should be grateful to both former president Clinton and vice president Gore for their extraordinary work,” Obama added. The two American journalists freed by North Korea after months of detention returned to the United States on Wednesday accompanied by former president Bill Clinton, who secured their release in a meeting with the reclusive state's leader Kim Jong-il. Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, reporters for an American cable television venture co-founded by Clinton's former vice president, Al Gore, arrived with Clinton at Burbank airport near Los Angeles aboard a private jet from North Korea. The families of the two freed scribes eagerly awaited their return. The overjoyed families said in a statement, “We especially want to thank president Bill Clinton for taking on such an arduous mission and vice president Al Gore for his tireless efforts to bring Laura and Euna home. “We must also thank all the people who have supported our families through this ordeal, it has meant the world to us. We are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms,” the statement said. The two Current TV journalists were arrested in March for illegally crossing into the North from China and had been reporting on the trafficking of women. They were both sentenced to 12 years hard labor in June. Ling raised her arms in the air as the two women descended from the plane for a tearful reunion with their families inside the airport hangar. Clinton was received with a round of applause and an embrace from Gore. US officials said North Korea was not promised any rewards for their release and there was no link to nuclear non-proliferation talks. Clinton's wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, told reporters in Nairobi she was happy and relieved. She added that there was no connection between the effort to free the two journalists and the thorny nuclear issue. “The future of our relationships with the North Koreans is really up to them. They have a choice,” she said. A US official said the former president talked to North Korea's leadership about the “positive things that could flow” from freeing the two women, who had been held since March. The Obama administration official gave no details, but some analysts have speculated that Clinton's visit and discussions with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could open the way to direct nuclear disarmament talks. “President Clinton had made clear that this was a purely private humanitarian mission,” the US official told reporters in Washington after Kim granted the journalists a pardon and allowed them to leave with Clinton and fly to Los Angeles. “Regardless of what the US administration says, the Clinton and Kim meeting signals the start of direct bargaining ... It's a matter of time when US-North bilateral talks begin,” South Korea's Chosun Ilbo daily said in an editorial.
