BEIJING - The administration of United States President Barak Obama
administration is going to dispatch former US president Jimmy Carter on a
mission to rescue a US citizen who has been detained there since January, a
report says.
Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, is set to travel to North Korea "within
days" in the capacity of a private citizen to free a US
citizen imprisoned there, Foreign Policy reported on Tuesday, citing sources
familiar with the former president's plans. The sources were not named.
Eighty-six-year-old Carter has decided to make the trip and possibly take his
wife Rosalynn and daughter Amy Lynn with him to bring back Aijalon Mahli Gomes,
a 30-year-old teacher from Boston who was sentenced to eight years in prison in
April for illegally entering the country in January, the report said.
The US government has yet to confirm the report.
If it happens, Carter will be on a mission similar to that of former president
Bill Clinton, who last summer flew to North Korea on a surprise visit to secure
the release of two US journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were accused of
illegally crossed into North Korea from China. They had been given a sentence
of hard labor for 12 years by a North Korean court.
With no official statement from the US government, analysts reacted cautiously.
David Straub, a former US State Department official who accompanied Clinton to
Pyongyang last year, declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the issue.
Others were more forthcoming. John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In
Focus, a Washington-based think-tank, believes Carter is a good choice for the
mission. "Carter has a reputation as a peace-maker," he said.
The fact that Carter has no position in the US government and that the Obama
administration would project the mission as a purely civilian crusade would
lessen the political burden on the US government, which has been taking tough
position on North Korea, Feffer said. This has especially been the case since
the sinking of a South Korean navy corvette, the Cheonan, in March that
a Seoul-led international investigation determined was torpedoed by North
Korea.
Senator John Kerry in Massachusetts, from where Gomes hails, and New Mexico's
governor Bill Richardson, who has made a similar rescue mission, were
considered, the report said, but they were rejected due to their positions.
Analysts said North Korea would want to use the occasions to "turn the page"
from the international blame over the Cheonan incident, exploiting
Carter's status. "North Koreans are looking for a sense of prestige and
respect. They feel a visit by the former president will give it to them," said
Scott Snyder, director of the Center for US-Korea Policy at the Asia
Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank.
A Carter trip, observers said, would not mean that the US administration had
changed its policy toward the North, let alone would it be likely to bring
about a breakthrough in the diplomatic stalemate over curbing North Korea's
nuclear program.
Rather, the urgency of the high-profile mission has been precipitated by the
ill-health of Gomes. In July, North Korea's official media said he had tried to
commit suicide. This month, a four-man team sent by the State Department to
Pyongyang failed to secure his release.
Meanwhile, some analysts remain skeptical. "The report is more speculation, not
necessarily based on any real indication from the administration," said Bruce
Klingner, a former Central Intelligence Agency agent familiar with North Korean
affairs and now a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation.
Klingner said the Obama administration was averse to the idea of sending a
high-profile figure. "They are less likely to send a high-visibility envoy
who's going to generate a lot of speculation and, in essence, a lot of pressure
on the administration for the US to return to the six-party nuclear talks
without receiving the pre-conditions the administration placed on North Korea,"
he said.
The Obama administration's position is to conditionally engage North Korea only
if the North commits itself to denuclearization.
But Choi Kang, a security analyst at the Institute of Foreign Affairs, which is
affiliated to the South Korean Foreign Ministry, had a different
interpretation. "The visit by State Department officials failed. Now, it has
become a matter you cannot solve without meeting the highest leader in North
Korea. Carter is good because he is a high-caliber figure for the task. At the
same time, if the mission fails, the US administration would feel less
politically burdened because he is not an incumbent political figure."
Carter helped defuse tensions in 1994 by going to Pyongyang to negotiate with
North Korean leader Kim Il-sun, Kim Jong-il's father. North Korea had
threatened to reprocess its spent nuclear fuel and the Clinton administration
was considering a pre-emptive air strike on the North's nuclear site near
Pyongyang.
Given Carter's seniority, some analysts also expect his visit may take on other
dimensions in terms of thawing tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. "He
could touch on other issues that could lead to productive dialogue," said
Feffer.
If Carter's mission takes place, it comes at a difficult time as North Korea's
domestic situation is highly volatile, with Kim Jong-il reportedly ill while
the world's unprecedented hereditary succession process to his inexperienced
youngest son, who is still in his 20s, is unfolding. Some analysts believe this
could trigger a power struggle.
Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of foreign policy at Seoul's Korea University, has his
take on a visit: "I am not sure whether Kim Jong-il would want to meet Jimmy
Carter. Within a month of Carter meeting Kim Il-sung, Kim Il-sung died."
Sunny Lee is a Seoul-born columnist/journalist who attended schools in
the United States and China.
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