U.S., N. Korea At Odds Over Reporters

North Korea convicted two American journalists and sentenced them Monday to 12 years of hard labor for crossing into its territory, intensifying the reclusive nation's confrontation with the United States.

The Obama administration said it would pursue "all possible channels" to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based Current TV media venture.

There are fears Pyongyang is using the women as bargaining chips as the U.N. debates a new resolution to punish the country for its defiant May 25 atomic test and as North Korea seeks to draw Washington into direct negotiations.

Washington's former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson called the sentencing part of "a high-stakes poker game" being played by North Korea. He said on NBC's Today show that he thinks negotiations for their "humanitarian release" can begin now that the legal process has been completed. Other South Korean analysts also said they expect the two to be freed following negotiations.

The journalists were found guilty of committing a "grave crime" against North Korea and of illegally entering the country, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

In the past, captured Americans, like an Army helicopter pilot, have been set free in relatively short order by sending a special envoy like Richardson. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is clearly thinking of doing that again, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.

Another possible envoy: Gore himself.

But former Clinton administration negotiator Jack Pritchard, one of the few Americans to actually meet North Korea's ruler Kim Jong Il, makes a very grim prediction.

"They're going to hold onto them for quite awhile. They may even serve out their term," Pritchard told Martin.

North Korean guards arrested Ling and Lee near the China-North Korean border on March 17. The pair were working on a story about the trafficking of women on the North Korea-China border, reports CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen, but the details of the arrests remain very vague - including whether they actually crossed into the communist state or were seized by the overzealous North Korean troops.

The Central Court in Pyongyang sentenced each to 12 years of "reform through labor" in a North Korean prison after a five-day trial, KCNA said in a terse, two-line report that provided no further details. A Korean-language version said they were convicted of "hostility toward the Korean people."

The ruling - nearly three months after their arrest on March 17 - comes amid soaring tensions fueled by North Korea's nuclear test last month and signs it is preparing for a long-range missile test. On Monday, North Korea warned fishing boats to stay away from the east coast, Japan's coast guard said, raising concerns more missile tests are being planned.

In the past three months, the North Koreans have seemed bent on confrontation with the new Obama administration - firing a long-range missile capable of hitting U.S. territory and testing a nuclear device.

"At this point it looks like they have made their decision . It is to move forward with a full fledged nuclear weapons program," Pritchard told Martin.

The U.S. is counting on diplomacy to pressure and persuade North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons. But the sentencing of the two journalists has made diplomacy a lot more complicated, Martin reports.

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama used strong language on North Korea's nuclear stance and said his administration did not intend "to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."

Verdicts issued by North Korea's highest court are final and cannot be appealed, said Choi Eun-suk, a North Korean law expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at South Korea's Kyungnam University. He said North Korea's penal code calls for transferring them to prison within 10 days.

Because of the lack of a legal appeal route, CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk says the two women's release will depend on political negotiations at a time when the U.S. is also considering putting North Korea back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

"China will be key to negotiations for the journalists release," Falk added, "but Kim Jung Il is looking for concessions from the United States at the same time that the government in Pyongyang appears to be planning yet another missile test."

The United States, which does not have diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, was "deeply concerned" about the reported verdict, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington. He said officials would "engage in all possible channels" to win the reporters' release.

At the White House on Monday, 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."

Ling's father Doug spoke briefly to The Associated Press at his home outside Sacramento, California, saying the family was "going to keep a low-profile until we hear something better about the situation," he said.

The family of Lee had no immediate comment, spokeswoman Alanna Zahn said from New York. Gore also had no comment, spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said.

Lee, 36, is Korean-American and speaks Korean, but it is not clear how well. She lives in California with her husband and 4-year-old daughter Hannah. Ling, 32, is Chinese-American and a native of California. Her sister is National Geographic "Explorer" TV journalist Lisa Ling.

Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the 12-year sentence - the maximum allowed under North Korean law - may have been a reaction to recent "hard-line" threats by the U.S., including possible sanctions and putting North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But he predicted the journalists' eventual release following diplomatic negotiations.

"The sentence doesn't mean much because the issue will be resolved diplomatically in the end," Kim said.

Just weeks after arresting the women, North Korea launched a multistage rocket over Japan in defiance of international calls for restraint. The U.S. and others called the launch a cover for a long-range missile test, and the U.N. Security Council condemned the move.

The U.N. censure enraged Pyongyang. North Korea abandoned nuclear disarmament talks, threatened to restart its atomic program and vowed to conduct nuclear and long-range missile tests if the Security Council failed to apologize.

The North followed through with its threat and staged its second-ever underground nuclear test. U.S. officials say the North appears to be preparing another long-range missile test at a west coast launch pad.

Some analysts called the arrest of the Americans a timely "bonanza" for Pyongyang as the impoverished regime prepares to negotiate for aid and other concessions to resolve the tense standoff over its nuclear defiance.

"North Korea refused to release them ahead of a court ruling because such a move could be seen as capitulating to the United States," said Hajime Izumi, professor of international relations and an expert on North Korea at the University of Shizuoka in Japan.

But now, "North Korea may release them on humanitarian grounds and demand the U.S. provide humanitarian aid in return," he said. "North Korea will certainly use the reporters as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States."

Their release could come through a post-negotiation political pardon, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

Asked whether U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had a reaction to the sentencing, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said: "We are concerned about the harsh sentencing of the two reporters and their well-being. We hope that the governments concerned expeditiously resolve the matter."

Ban was South Korea's foreign minister before his selection as U.N. chief.

The sentence is "a terrible shock for all those who have repeatedly insisted on their innocence," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement, noting that North Korea is ranked as Asia's worst country for press freedom.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists urged South Korea, Japan, Russia and the U.S., the five countries involved in the stalled disarmament talks with North Korea, to work for the journalists' release."

The sentencing comes a month after Iran released Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who had been sentenced to eight years in prison for on a charge of spying for the United States. An appeals court reduced that to a two-year suspended sentence and she was freed May 11.

Little is known about prison conditions in North Korea. But Rev. Chun Ki-won, a South Korean missionary who helped arrange the journalists' trip to China, said inmates in North Korean labor camps frequently face beatings and other inhumane treatment while being forced to engage in harsh labor such as logging and construction work.

Chun, however, predicted the North would send the journalists to a labor camp.

No Charge of Espionage

Richardson, who was instrumental in negotiating the release of U.S. 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.

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

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."