SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter arrived Wednesday in the capital of communist North Korea on a mission to bring home an American sentenced to eight years' hard labor for trespassing. A young North Korean girl with a red scarf tied around her neck handed Carter flowers after he landed at the Pyongyang airport on Wednesday,...
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter arrived Wednesday in the capital of communist North Korea on a mission to bring home an American sentenced to eight years' hard labor for trespassing.
A young North Korean girl with a red scarf tied around her neck handed Carter flowers after he landed at the Pyongyang airport on Wednesday, footage aired by TV news agency APTN showed. North Korea's top nuclear envoys led the delegation of officials on hand to welcome Carter, according to APTN.
The rare journey to win the release of 31-year-old Aijalon Gomes of Boston comes a year after another ex-U.S. president, Bill Clinton, traveled to North Korea on a private mission to bring home two American journalists also sentenced to prison for sneaking into the country illegally. A fourth American was set free earlier this year after 40 days in custody.
As with Clinton's visit, reclusive North Korea is expected to portray Carter's trip - coming at a time of heightened tensions over its nuclear ambitions and the March sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang - as a diplomatic victory.
The Korean peninsula remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Washington does not have diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, and the U.S. military stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect the longtime ally. However, North Korea has made it clear it wants normalized relations with the U.S. and a peace treaty. It cites the U.S. military presence on Korean soil as a key reason behind its bid to build nuclear weapons.
Senior U.S. officials in Washington confirmed Monday that Carter would be traveling to North Korea but stressed that Carter was not representing the U.S. government but was on a private mission.
North Korea had agreed to release Gomes, who was believed to be in ailing health, to Carter if the ex-president visits, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press in Washington. Carter was expected to spend one night in North Korea and return home with Gomes on Thursday, a second U.S. official said.
Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
However, North Korea last year parlayed the Clinton trip into a diplomatic coup. Pyongyang's state media said Clinton apologized on behalf of the women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and relayed President Barack Obama's gratitude during a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
It was not known whether Carter was scheduled to meet Kim on this trip. No U.S. officials were to travel with Carter, the U.S. official said.
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington that he would not comment on Carter's trip.
"We will continue to withhold comment. We do not want to jeopardize the prospects for Mr. Gomes to be returned home by discussing any details related to private humanitarian efforts to get him released and back here safely to the United States," Crowley told reporters Tuesday.
Top North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan and No. 2 nuclear official Ri Gun were among officials on hand to welcome Carter with handshakes, according to APTN. The state-run Korean Central News Agency also reported Carter's arrival in a brief dispatch from Pyongyang.
Gomes was convicted in April of crossing into North Korea illegally from China. He was the fourth American detained in North Korea within a year.
South Korean media had reported that Carter flew to Pyongyang on a civilian jet with his wife, Rosalynn, and Carter Center President John Hardman, but there was no sign of his wife or Hardman in the footage aired by APTN.
