With Reporters Home, What Happens Next?

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American journalists imprisoned in North Korea since March, returned to the United States Wednesday after a surprise trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton.

But now that they're home, back with their family after an emotional reunion in a Los Angeles airport hangar, a key question remains - what happens next in the turbulent U.S.-North Korean relationship?

The pair's imprisonment was one factor in the drastic deterioration of relations between the U.S. and North Korea, which have centered on the latter's nuclear weapons program.

So does their pardon from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il represent a chance for the U.S. to start over with North Korea and thaw an otherwise frigid relationship that's been characterized by a breakdown of multilateral negotiations and a series of defiant missile tests from Pyongyang?

Or is it a public relations coup for Kim, who drew a former U.S. president over the Pacific Ocean for what state media described as "exhaustive" talks on a wide range of issues - something that could further embolden the reportedly ailing dictator?

"Now that the American journalists are on terra firma, back in the U.S., the Obama administration has effectively reset the dial on the U.S.-North Korean relationship," offers CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, from the U.N., "and it will now be up to Secretary of State Clinton to see if the former president's successful trip can transform the good will into a negotiated agreement with Pyongyang on nuclear disarmament."

The North Korean U.N. Mission told CBS News last week that Kim's regime wanted direct negotiations with the U.S. over nuclear weapons, according to Falk. Clinton's surprise visit, in their eyes, was "one step in the direction of a direct dialogue."
"The reception that former President Clinton received in Pyongyang indicates that the government of Kim Jong Il wants negotiations," said Falk, "but whether or not North Korea is serious this time about verifiable disarmament is not as clear."

However, while Clinton secured the release of Ling and Lee, the U.S. also handed a public relations victory to Kim.

"We got the journalists home. We get a lessening of tension," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said on CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday. "North Korea gets more international prestige and Kim Jong Il is able to say to his countrymen, one of the poorest nations on Earth, 'I brought a former president to our soil,' something he's been trying to do for years."

Richardson, who served as U.N. ambassador under Bill Clinton and had experience negotiating with North Korea previously, said Pyongyang had won this "chess game" and that the diplomatic battle between the two nations was "equal right now."

A lot of that has to do with how each side is spinning the encounter between Clinton and Kim. North Korean state media reported that during the "exhaustive" talks with Kim, Clinton apologized for reporters' actions.

But that report was quickly refuted by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"That is not true," she said. "That did not occur."

A senior U.S. official said the reporters' families and Gore asked the former president to travel to Pyongyang to seek their release and that Clinton's mission did not include discussions about issues beyond that. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe events leading up to the Clinton trip and the women's release.

But some question the wisdom of engaging North Korea in such a high-profile manner. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, John R. Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., called Clinton's trip a "significant propaganda victory for North Korea."

The presence of Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, was "an unmistakable symbol of linkage" between the reporters and Kim's nuclear agenda, wrote Bolton.

"Despite decades of bipartisan U.S. rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages, it seems that the Obama administration not only chose to negotiate, but to send a former president to do so," Bolton wrote.

According to CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate, North Korea has played "all sides of this very well."

"They've held these two women, held a kangaroo trial, and have basically used them as diplomatic pawns."

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that the entire Clinton rescue operation was apparently highly orchestrated, involving extensive negotiations between Pyonyang and the U.S. State Department.

Laura Ling's mother told CBS News that when her daughter called a couple weeks ago, she made it very clear that it would take a visit by the former president to win their release.

North Korea got that. What happens next?