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(LEAD) Jimmy Carter calls on U.S., S. Korea to talk directly with N. Korea
By Byun Duk-kun
SEOUL, March 23 (Yonhap) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter urged Washington and Seoul on Tuesday to engage North Korea both in bilateral and multilateral talks to end the communist nation's nuclear ambition, saying a failure to do so may lead to a "catastrophic war."
"No one can predict the final answers from Pyongyang, but there is no harm in making a major effort, including unrestrained direct talks. The initiative must be from America and South Korea," the former U.S. leader said in a special lecture at Seoul's Korea University, from which he received an honorary doctorate of political science.
Pyongyang's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan earlier sought to visit the U.S., apparently for a last-minute consultation with his American counterparts on the resumption of the nuclear negotiations, but the U.S. remains cautious about holding bilateral talks with the communist nation without assurances that such talks would lead to a prompt resumption of the nuclear negotiations.
Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, visited the North Korean capital late last year after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told China's visiting Premier Wen Jiabao that his country may return to the six-party talks following one-on-one dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang.
Pyongyang has kept away from the nuclear negotiations since December 2008, and now says it will not return to the negotiating table until the removal of U.N. sanctions, imposed shortly after its second nuclear detonation test last year.
Carter, 85, said that the U.N. sanctions, along with years of other international penalties on the North, have merits, but said the reason the North continues to behave in a provocative way is because the country genuinely fears preemptive military attacks.
"It was obvious to me when I was in North Korea that there is deep resentment of the past and genuine fear of preemptive military attacks in the future," Carter said of his 1994 visit to Pyongyang, where he met with North Korea's late founder and President Kim Il-sung.
"The perpetuation of their regime is paramount in Pyongyang, and the leaders and people have suffered from economic sanctions and diplomatic exclusion for more than 50 years," Carter said.
The former U.S. president, however, said the international community must continue its humanitarian assistance to the North, saying it is ordinary North Koreans who take the brunt of the economic sanctions.
"It is the common citizens, farmers and workers who suffer the most, but my country and your country participate in this punishment of North Korean people," he said when asked whether the world must continue to punish North Korea for its nuclear ambition and other provocations.
Carter said the U.S. must do everything, including giving a firm statement of "no hostile intent," to bring North Korea back to the negotiations.
"The alternative is a continuation of the present path of estrangement, isolation, additional suffering of innocent North Korean private citizens and ever-expanding conventional and nuclear arsenals, perhaps leading to a catastrophic war," he said in the special lecture attended by hundreds of officials, scholars and students.
"This must be avoided by political courage and wise diplomacy," he added.
Carter also urged North Korean leader Kim to honor his late father's 1994 promise to give up nuclear weapons programs.
North Korea has agreed in principle to denuclearize under two six-party agreements signed in September 2005 and in February 2007. The country, however, detonated a nuclear device in 2006 and another in May 2009.
bdk@yna.co.kr
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