Kim Tae-woo
According to Kim Tae-woo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, a South Korean institute, "[t]he journalists considerably weakened their government's leverage against the North" in ongoing negotiations over the DPRK's nuclear program. William Stanton, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Seoul, reportedly expressed a similar but stronger view, calling the two journalists "stupid" and arguing that their arrest was "distracting from bigger issues" in April 8 remarks to several U.S. congressional staff visiting South Korea. One of Stanton's guests was so upset by his remarks that he wrote a memorandum of complaint to a member of Congress, which sparked wide discussion.