'Jimmy Carter offers to talk peace with North Korea's Kim'
22 Oct 2017 3:41 PM GMT
Washington: Jimmy Carter has reportedly said he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a bid to defuse tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes, and bring "permanent peace" to the Korean peninsula.
In an intervention that is likely to irritate Donald Trump, the 93-year-old former president told a South Korean academic that he was willing to travel to the North Korean capital if it meant preventing war.
"Should former president Carter be able to visit North Korea, he would like to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and discuss a peace treaty between the United States and the North, and a complete denuclearisation of North Korea," Park Han-shik, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, told South Korea's JoongAng Daily newspaper.
Park said Carter told him during a meeting at his home in Georgia at the end of September that he wanted to "contribute toward establishing a permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula.
"He wants to employ his experience visiting North Korea to prevent a second Korean war," he added.
Carter's recent comments on North Korea have angered the White House, which last month reportedly asked him not to speak publicly about the crisis amid fears he was undermining Trump, who refuses to entertain any form of rapprochement with the regime.
Media reports said a senior US state department official had visited Carter at his home to pass on Trump's request.
Carter's conciliatory stance sits uneasily with attempts by the Trump admin.
Next Story
