Veteran former U. S. politician and diplomat Bill Richardson offered on Friday to visit North Korea to secure the release of three detained Americans and a
WASHINGTON – Veteran former U. S. politician and diplomat Bill Richardson offered on Friday to visit North Korea to secure the release of three detained Americans and a Canadian after U. S. university student Otto Warmbier was brought back in a coma.
Richardson, a former New Mexico governor and congressman who visited North Korea in the 1990s and sought the release of detained Americans, said he had made the proposal in a letter to the North Korean mission to the United Nations.
“I have proposed that as of today, ” Richardson said, adding that he argued in the letter it is in North Korea’s interest to free the detainees unconditionally, “in the light of its failure to properly take care and handle” Warmbier’s case.
Doctors say the 22-year-old, who was returned to the United States on Tuesday after being held in North Korea for 17 months, has severe brain injury and is in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness.”
Richardson said he and members of his foundation had met with North Korean diplomats 20 times in the past year to try to secure the release of Warmbier and the others: Korean-Americans Tony Kim, Kim Dong Chul and Kim Hak Song, and Korean-Canadian Hyeon Soo Lim.
