US should keep promise to pay North Korea’s US$2 million hospital bill for Otto Warmbier, says ex-diplomat Joseph Yun, who secured student’s release
- Former special envoy confirms he signed agreement with North Koreans for payment before Warmbier was flown out of Pyongyang in a coma in 2017
- US President Donald Trump says ‘no money was paid’, but has not addressed whether commitment was made over bill
The former US diplomat who secured the release of American Otto Warmbier from North Korea said on Monday that Washington should honour its pledge to pay Pyongyang US$2 million for the student’s hospital care.
Joseph Yun, the former US special envoy for North Korea, confirmed he had signed an agreement with the North Koreans for the payment of the money before Warmbier was flown out of Pyongyang in a coma on June 13, 2017.
He died days after returning home.
White House national security adviser John Bolton said in a television interview on Sunday that while the agreement had been signed, no payment had been made to the North Koreans.
Yun, who retired from the State Department last year and is now a global affairs analyst for CNN, said on the network he believed the United States should honour its commitment.
“My view is, yes. If you’ve signed, if you promised another government from the US government that you would make the payment, my view certainly is that we should go ahead and meet our end of the commitment,” he said.