BEIJING — American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have become pawns in a global chess match.
North Korea captured the women at its border with China and said this week that it would put the two on trial, and suggested that they could face years in a prison camp.
Scholars of North Korea said the women’s situation was dramatic but that Pyong yang probably would seek to exchange them for concessions rather than throw them in prison.
“I’m not overly worried about their welfare,” said Aidan Foster-Carter, an author on North Korean issues who is retired from Leeds University in Britain. The North Koreans “will want to trade them for something or other.”
A senior U.S. intelligence official said Pyongyang was on track for a projected Saturday launch of a suspected missile.
At the G20 summit in London, President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak issued a statement agreeing on “a stern, united response from the international community if North Korea launches a long-range rocket.”
