Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Former President Bill Clinton left North Korea with two U.S. journalists who were pardoned and released by the country’s leader Kim Jong Il.

Clinton flew out today with Euna Lee and Laura Ling on a flight to Los Angeles where the journalists will be reunited with their families, Matt McKenna, a spokesman for the former president, said in an e-mailed statement.

Kim granted “a special pardon” to the journalists, who were detained in March, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said early today. Clinton apologized to Kim for “the hostile acts” by the women, who were found guilty of entering the country illegally, the news agency said.

Clinton, making a surprise visit yesterday, was met at Pyongyang airport by Kim Kye Gwan, the country’s chief negotiator at talks to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear capability, KCNA said.

The former president and the North Korean leader “had an exhaustive conversation” and a “wide-ranging exchange of views on the matters of common concern,” KCNA said without giving further details. The country’s National Defense Commission hosted Clinton at a dinner in his honor, the agency said.

The journalists were sentenced in June to 12 years of “reform through labor” for charges including illegally crossing the border from China. The imprisonment coincided with increased tension with the U.S., with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushing through United Nations sanctions against North Korea after the regime’s detonation of a nuclear device in May.

Private Visit

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, yesterday declined to comment on Bill Clinton’s visit, saying in a written statement, “While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment. We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission.”

Photographs were later released showing Clinton and Kim standing together and smiling. Kim had a stroke in August 2008, according to U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials. He appeared at North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly in April limping slightly and looking gaunt and aged. He is grooming his third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as heir, Japanese and South Korean media have reported.

The elder Kim will soon transfer power to Kim Jong Un, a South Korean government official has said.

Yu Ho Yeol, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul, said the visit “will certainly serve as a turning point in the U.S.-North Korean dialogue.”

Nuclear Activities

Clinton’s visit echoes a similar trip by former President Jimmy Carter in 1994. Following that visit, Clinton, as president, reached an agreement with Kim to freeze the communist nation’s nuclear activities.

In 2000, Clinton met Vice Marshall Jo Myong Rok, the first encounter between a U.S. president and senior North Korean official since the end of the Korean War. Later that year, he sent Madeleine Albright, then secretary of state, to Pyongyang to meet Kim, the highest-ranking U.S. government official to visit the country.

The Clinton accord, known as the “Agreed Framework,” fell through in 2002 after North Korea acknowledged it had secretly restarted the nuclear program. It kicked out international inspectors and conducted a first nuclear test in 2006.

“Clinton in some ways has a higher standing now than Carter had in 1994, since he was the U.S. president who made the most tangible progress in relations with North Korea,” said Paik Hak Soon, a researcher on North Korean issues at Sejong Institute outside Seoul.

Missile Tests

North Korea fired more than a dozen missiles this year in defiance of international pressure. Hillary Clinton has been gathering allies for her attempts to isolate North Korea, winning over China to impose UN sanctions in June.

North Korea in April said it would never return to talks involving the U.S., China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. Last week, Pyongyang signaled a softening of its stance, saying it may be open to negotiations outside the six-party setting.

North Korea asked in unofficial contacts through its UN mission in New York that Clinton or a high-ranking Obama administration official visit for negotiations, South Korea’s Yonhap News said, without saying where it obtained the information.

Kim’s administration also used the “New York channel” to contact former Congressman Bill Richardson for informal talks in 2003, the White House said at the time. Richardson, who was Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the UN, negotiated the freedom of a U.S. helicopter pilot shot down in 1994 and a U.S. citizen who crossed into North Korea in 1996 and was accused of spying.

Television Reporters

Ling and Lee were detained while reporting for San Francisco-based Current TV, co-founded by Clinton’s former vice president, Al Gore.

Asked about their status last month, Hillary Clinton said the two women had expressed “great remorse for this incident.”

“Everyone is very sorry that it happened,” she said. “What we hope for now is that these two young women will be granted amnesty.”

By seeking an amnesty, the U.S. appears to be conceding that the two reporters broke North Korea’s laws, Paik said.

“The visit indicates that the U.S. and North Korea are willing to resolve this matter through dialogue,” he said. “We’ll have to see if this expands to the nuclear issue.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Heejin Koo in Seoul at hjkoo@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 4, 2009 20:26 EDT