Carter to Go to North Korea to Release Prisoner, Reports Say
Carter to Go to North Korea to Release Prisoner, Reports Say
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Carter will be traveling to North Korea “within days” on a private mission to secure release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes.
Carter will be traveling to North Korea “within days” on a private mission to secure release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes. Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will travel to North Korea this week to negotiate the release of an American citizen who has been detained for seven months for illegal entry, the Associated Press reported.
North Korea has agreed to release Aijalon Mahli Gomes if Carter visits Pyongyang, AP said, citing U.S. officials it didn’t identify. The 85-year-old former leader is preparing to leave later today and will spend one night in North Korea before returning to the U.S., according to the report.
Carter may help diffuse heightened tension on the Korean peninsula since the North was accused of torpedoing one of the South’s warships in March, killing 46 sailors. His trip could also move North Korea toward resuming multinational talks on the communist nation’s nuclear weapons program, said Kim Yong Hyun at Dongguk University in Seoul.
“This signals U.S. willingness to become more flexible in its policy on North Korea and may be a turning point for stalled disarmament talks,” said Kim, a professor of North Korean studies. “Carter’s symbolic importance in North Korea as the person who met the founder also means North Korea will offer much more than releasing Gomes.”
Carter traveled to Pyongyang in 1994 when he met with Kim Il Sung, founder of North Korea and father of current leader Kim Jong Il, and discussed terms to freeze the nuclear program. Calls to Carter’s press secretary, Deanna Congileo, and the Atlanta-based Carter Center weren’t answered after normal business hours.
Suicide Attempt
U.S. government officials will not be traveling with Carter, AP said. Foreign Policy magazine and Seoul-based Yonhap News also reported on Carter’s planned trip.
Gomes was sentenced to eight years of hard labor in April after he was captured on Jan. 25 for illegally crossing the border from China, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency has said. The 31-year-old Boston resident attempted suicide last month because he felt his government hadn’t done enough to get him free, KCNA reported.
“We are engaged with the North Koreans to try to encourage them to release him on humanitarian grounds,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in a briefing yesterday to reporters in Washington, declining to say whether an envoy is being considered. “We’re anxious to get Mr. Gomes home.”
Representatives from nations in six-party talks aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons program last met in December 2008. The group also includes China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S.
China’s Envoy
China’s top envoy to the Korean peninsula, Wu Dawei, will visit South Korea between Aug. 26 and 28 for talks with officials on the North Korea nuclear issue, the South’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said today in a statement on its website. Wu also plans to explain details of his Aug. 16-18 trip to North Korea, the statement said.
Wu discussed ways to resume the nuclear talks in his meetings with North Korean officials, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Aug. 19.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang and met with leader Kim Jong Il last August, winning the release of two U.S. journalists arrested in March 2009 for illegal entry. Clinton’s trip led to U.S. attempts to engage in direct talks with North Korea to convince Kim’s regime to return to the disarmament negotiations.
North Korea faces tighter U.S. sanctions targeted at government officials and foreign banks that sustain the regime’s arms industry for the March 26 attack on the warship Cheonan. North Korea has denied responsibility and expressed a willingness to return to the nuclear talks.
In a July 24 interview, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan dismissed the North’s readiness for dialogue as a ploy to divert attention from the sinking incident.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net
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