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President Carter extracts American hostage from North Korea

By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, August 26, 2010 23:49 EST
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Former US president Jimmy Carter was heading home from North Korea Friday after securing the release of an American citizen and a pledge from Pyongyang that it wants to resume nuclear disarmament talks.

The Nobel peace laureate was leaving the reclusive communist state with Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an African-American who was jailed in April for illegally crossing into the North from China, his office said.

State media in North Korea and China said the former president had left the country but this was not immediately confirmed by his Carter Center.

“At the request of president Carter, and for humanitarian purposes, Mr Gomes was granted amnesty by” North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, said a Carter Center statement.

Gomes was first detained in January and then sentenced to eight years of hard labour and a fine of about 600,000 dollars for illegal entry into North Korea.

The Carter Center said it expected Gomes would return to the US city of Boston on Friday afternoon to be reunited with his family.

Carter had arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday on a private mercy mission for Gomes which his office and US officials stressed was not sponsored by the US government.

However, North Korea’s state media said Friday that Pyongyang had expressed its willingness through Carter to resume six-party nuclear disarmament talks which have been on ice since April last year.

North Korea has made similar expressions before but attached onerous conditions to any resumption of talks that have been ruled out by the US and South Korean governments.

But the latest offer via Carter came just after a senior Chinese envoy on the nuclear dossier had visited Pyongyang, and as Kim Jong-Il reportedly pays a visit to China, North Korea’s sole diplomatic and economic patron.

China’s Xinhua news agency said Carter spoke with North Korea’s nuclear envoy Kim Kye-Gwan for a few minutes before departing Pyongyang. He had also held dinner talks on Wednesday with number two leader Kim Yong-Nam.

Kim Yong-Nam expressed a willingness for “the resumption of the six-party talks” and the denuclearisation of the peninsula, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said after Carter’s visit.

North Korea walked out on the talks, also involving South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan, in April 2009 in protest at UN condemnation of an apparent missile test disguised as a space rocket launch.

It carried out its second nuclear test the following month, sparking tougher UN sanctions.

A key obstacle to restarting disarmament talks is the sinking in March of a South Korean warship, with the deaths of 46 sailors, an attack both South Korea and the United States blamed on North Korea.

The United States on Thursday declined to rule out a resumption of the talks, heading into the UN General Assembly late next month.

Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
AFP journalists cover wars, conflicts, politics, science, health, the environment, technology, fashion, entertainment, the offbeat, sports and a whole lot more in text, photographs, video, graphics and online.
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  • Anonymous

    Jimmy Carter has more respect around the world then any Bush ever will. Way to go Jimmy. Got any of that Billy Beer stashed away for a day like this???

  • Anonymous

    Oh Boy Guess who’s going to be on Glenn Beck’s blackboard.

  • dennycrane

    Trump that you tories. Oh, I forgot, Bo Gritz. Ha ha ha ha ha.

  • Anonymous

    Trump that you tories. Oh, I forgot bo gritz. Ha ha ha ha ha.

  • Anonymous

    Carter just gave beck a wedgie with his “magical underwear.”

  • guest51

    Ronald Reagan left office being a whore cashing out for money doing speeches at Conservative only rallys. Very much what Palin is doing.

    Bush Sr didn’t do squat, Cheney didn’t either.

    Bush Jr is a loser.

    Carter is the only person who really did something productive with his life.

  • Anonymous

    Congratulations President Carter for a job well done. President Clinton did a good job as well when he went to North Korea.

    What should these successes tell us? Talk to the enemy. The U.S. government will not talk to or recognize North Korea or Iran, allowing paranoia, fear and suspicions to grow with possible catastrophic consequences. The time for dialogue is Now!

  • http://car.zeo.hk/2010/08/27/27-august-rss-revue/ Ford : : 27 August – RSS Revue – Car Gallery

    [...] President Carter extracts American hostage from North Korea - 3 hours agoFormer US president Jimmy Carter was heading home from North Korea Friday after securing the release of an American citizen and a pledge from Pyongyang that it wants to resume nuclear disarmament talk… [...]

  • http://caffeinesoldier.blogspot.com/ Gray

    And once again, hooray for Jimmy Carter! But ain’t it strange that a guy who was so unimpressive as a president has such a comeback as an elder statesman? I don’t think the man and his convictions have changed much, so what is behind this? Horrible advisers in the WH during his term? Or was president just not the right job for Jimmy, and he better should have become Secretary of State or US Ambassador at the UN instead?

  • TheDevilCanDance

    Seems like diplomacy works………but according to Bush’s own policies & his fake Texas phony toughie mentality ,”diplomacy is for pussy”. This is why his administration was an abject failure at everything they touched. But there is beauty in nature. Bush was a fake tough candy, Obama is a real spineless puppy

  • Anonymous

    Former FLOTUS Clinton and the United States Department of State couldn’t free this man? Unless POTUS Obama personally asked Mr. Carter to go to North Korea, this demonstrates another diplomatic failure on the part of the current administration. Mr. Carter is an extraordinary man of principle and far more worthy of respect in nearly every way than Cliinton, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., or POTUS Obama however always remember that Jimmy was not a particularly good president.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe Carter was too nice when faced with SOB opponents? He put the US on track to get off oil – but Reagan reversed all of his policies. Carter worked hard to resolve the Iran hostage situation. First there was a failed military attempt. Then Reagan and Bush senior worked behind his back, cutting a deal to sell Iran spare parts for their fighter jets and other weapons. The deal was for Iran to hold onto the hostages until after the election. That made Carter look weak and he lost. It was a brilliant move on the part of Reagan/Bush – brilliant but anti-American in my opinion.

    The US went through some bad economic times during the Carter years. Those were also the years we were paying off the debt for the Viet Nam war. The only way to get out of debt is to go through some hard economic times. That is true at home and as a nation. We may have had to endure that to get out of debt, but Carter had the misfortune of being in office during that time and took the blame for it.

    I believe we would all be a lot better off today if Carter had served a second term.

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