If its true, it suggests both that the North Koreans don't want Euna Lee and Laura Ling to be able to report conditions in a labor camp and that they are willing to discuss the journalists' release with the U.S.
From Huffington Post:
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has delayed sending two convicted U.S. journalists to a prison labor camp, in a possible attempt to seek talks with Washington on their release, a scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday.
Laura Ling and Euna lee, who work for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media group, are being kept at guest house in the North Korean capital and have not yet been sent to a prison camp as called for in their sentences, University of Georgia political scientist Han Park said.
"I heard from North Korean officials that the American journalists were doing fine at a guest house in Pyongyang," Park told South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Park, originally from South Korea, arrived Thursday in Seoul following a trip to Pyongyang.
...
North Korea's move not to carry out the sentence suggests that it could release them through a dialogue with the United States and they could be set free at an early date, depending on the U.S. gesture," Park said.
Separately, Park told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that the issue of the journalists could be resolved if the U.S. government offers an official apology over their hostile acts and promises that such things won't happen again.
He also predicted that Washington and Pyongyang could hold a dialogue soon over the journalists' release and their return to the U.S., according to Yonhap. No timeframe for a possible meeting was given, and officials in Washington could not immediately be reached to comment on the likelihood of such discussions taking place.
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