That is the question everyone is wondering and here is what the Chosun Ilbo thinks the Obama administration has offered Kim Jong-il in return for the journalists:

Hearing the news of Clinton’s Pyongyang visit, many will have been perplexed and even felt betrayed by the U.S. But the development is merely a manifestation of the dynamics of international politics, which are nothing but the pursuit of national interests. South Korea will have to look at the situation coolly and realistically. What the U.S. fears most is for terrorist organizations hostile to it to acquire nuclear weapons from North Korea. Removing the danger is the top U.S. priority. It is needless to ask how Washington will choose if its national interest clashes with South Korea’s position.

Clinton’s Pyongyang visit has shown the limits of the effectiveness of UN sanctions against North Korea. In matters concerning South Korea’s national interest, we should harbor no illusion about UN authority. So long as China is an ally of the North, sanctions against the North cannot be effective, and it will not fear war.

The U.S. and North Korea will at some point sit at a negotiation table. In the negotiations, the North Korean nuclear issue will be discussed along with the entire question of the Korean Peninsula, and the agenda will include the replacement of the armistice with a peace agreement. And the peace accord is directly linked to the presence of the U.S. Forces Korea.

It cannot be ruled out that Obama himself will visit Pyongyang for a summit within a few years. In that process, the North will attempt to freeze the South out. South Korea was already sidestepped in the 1994 Geneva accords between the U.S. and North Korea. Washington may have notified Seoul of Clinton’s Pyongyang visit in advance, but it’s doubtful if the visit was preceded by a full cooperation with Seoul.

If Washington-Pyongyang negotiations can denuclearize the North and guarantee a complete peace on the Korean Peninsula, there is no reason why we should not welcome them. But if the process leads to the North being recognized as a nuclear power, we must resist it as strongly as we can.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Basically the scenario the Chosun Ilbo is laying out is exactly what many on the left believe should be done with North Korea, if we are just a bit nicer to them and give them what they want peace in our time will come.  Just ask President Obama’s nuclear envoy Stephen Bosworth.   A visit by President Obama to Pyongyang would be a huge propaganda coup for Kim Jong-il if it meant the signing of a peace treaty to end the Korean War.  It would be played off by Pyongyang as the US officially surrendering to North Korea.

However, the fantasy in all this is to think the North Koreans will ever give up their nuclear weapons.  It is their one trump card that makes them relevant around the world and gives them internal regime security.  This is not something that a country like North Korea, who would be nothing but a third world backwater internationally otherwise, is going to give up.   Don’t even get me started on the fact that no one is mentioning anything about the human rights situation within North Korea which continues to be ignored by the US government.

By the way One Free Korea has a short list of things he does and does not want to hear from Laura Ling and Euna Lee that is worth checking out.