国际英语新闻：DPRK's conciliatory moves ease tensions on Korean Peninsula

PYONGYANG, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in recent weeks has made a series of conciliatory moves toward the United States and South Korea.

    That's after months of tensions on the divided Korean peninsula aroused by the DPRK's nuclear and missile tests.

Photo released by North Korean official news agency KCNA shows former US president Bill Clinton (L, seated) and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il (R, seated) posing for a picture in Pyongyang on August 4, 2009. Kim Jong-Il met Clinton here on Tuesday.

The easing of tension began when former U.S. President Bill Clinton paid a surprise visit to Pyongyang in early August to win the release of two detained American journalists.

    After that trip, DPRK diplomats at the United Nations requested a meeting with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who has visited Pyongyang several times in the past.

The two female American journalists just amnestied by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) go aboard a chartered plane carrying the homebound former U.S. president Bill Clinton to leave Pyongyang, capital of the DPRK, on Aug. 5, 2009.