(CNSNews.com) – Former President Clinton and two American journalists whose release he secured during a brief visit to North Korea flew home Wednesday, as questions surround the details of Clinton's mission to the reclusive dictatorship.

Photos released by China’s Xinhua news agency showed Euna Lee and Laura Ling, evidently in good health and carrying their own bags, walking to a plane at Pyongyang airport. Other footage showed Clinton greeting the two as they boarded the aircraft.

“They are en route to Los Angeles where Laura and Euna will be reunited with their families,” Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said in a statement.

The two, both from California, were arrested last March along the North Korean-Chinese border and sentenced in June to 12 years’ imprisonment for crimes against the communist-ruled state.

Clinton arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday on a previously unannounced visit, and North Korean official media reported soon afterwards that leader Kim Jong-il had granted the two women a “special pardon.”

The KCNA news agency said their release was “a manifestation of the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s] humanitarian and peace-loving policy.”

It said the former president had “sincerely apologized” for the “hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it” and had conveyed a U.S. government request to pardon and release them.

“Clinton courteously conveyed a verbal message of U.S. President Barack Obama expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries,” the KCNA report added.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the mission, despite being repeatedly pressed during a press briefing. He pointed to a brief statement issued earlier in the day stating, “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.”

Gibbs did say that a report that Clinton had taken a message from President Obama was not true.

And he stressed the administration’s position all along that it was keeping the issue of the detained journalists separate from the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities.

Nonetheless, observers including John Bolton, former top arms control official in the Bush administration and ambassador to the U.N., noted that Clinton had been met on his arrival by Kim Kye-Gwan, North Korea’s chief negotiator at the now-stalled “six-party” nuclear talks.

‘Discussions on pending issues … seeking negotiated settlement’

Clinton also met with Kim Jong-il, holding what KCNA described as “exhaustive” talks.

KCNA’s account of the visit hinted that the agenda was broader than an appeal for the journalists’ release: It said the two held “candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them.”

State media released numerous photographs showing the two men, highlighting the importance Pyongyang was according the encounter.

Clinton as president was involved in earlier efforts to resolve a crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, negotiating a 1994 deal, the ill-fated Agreed Framework, with the Stalinist regime after former President Carter visited Pyongyang earlier that year.

For Kim Jong-il, the visit comes at a time when his regime faces new sanctions – adopted by the U.N. Security Council in June in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test the previous month – and when the Obama administration, like its predecessor, has refused to hold bilateral talks, insisting that negotiations should take place through the six-party mechanism.

North Korea’s belligerent behavior and hostile rhetoric have produced a climate not conducive to engagement. Korea experts have been expecting Kim, known for his brinkmanship, to look for a way out of situation he has created, and Clinton’s visit could provide the opportunity.

“Regardless of what the U.S. administration says, the Clinton and Kim meeting signals the start of direct bargaining,” editorialized Chosun Ilbo, a conservative South Korean newspaper. It predicted that it was only a matter of time before bilateral talks begin.

The paper also said South Korea must watch developments carefully.

“If Washington-Pyongyang negotiations can denuclearize the North and guarantee a complete peace on the Korean Peninsula, there is no reason why we should not welcome them,” it said. “But if the process leads to the North being recognized as a nuclear power, we must resist it as strongly as we can.”

Kim Heung Kwang, a North Korean defector with the Seoul-based organization North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, recalled that Pyongyang reaped benefits from Carter’s visit in 1994.

“In the past, when North Korea has faced its most serious confrontations, it has created the necessary circumstances to overcome them by inviting a high U.S. official to Pyongyang for some reason,” he said.

“This time, North Korea is trying to break through the latest tensions and international sanctions.”

“Clinton’s visit has roiled the North Korean policy waters beyond their already tumultuous state,” Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation’s Asia Studies Center, said in a memo Tuesday. “There are great uncertainties over North Korean and U.S. intentions, escalating the risk of miscalculation, confrontation, and crisis.”

Klingner said the administration must make it clear that freeing the journalists is not a substitute for North Korea’s compliance with the U.N. resolution passed in June and an earlier one adopted after its first nuclear test in 2006. Both call for it to stop its nuclear program, conduct no further nuclear or missile tests and return to six-party talks.

“Washington should continue to insist that North Korea express its clear commitment to abide by all of its previous six-party talks pledges to completely and verifiably abandon its nuclear weapons programs,” he said.