*** TOPIC OF THE WEEK (Part 1)

Carter Wraps Up North Korea Trip, Fails to Meet Kim Jong-il

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter wrapped up his three-day trip to North Korea last week but returned home without producing any significant results. His trip to Pyongyang and later to Seoul was aimed at brokering inter-Korean dialogue on easing tensions and laying the groundwork for the resumption of six-party nuclear talks.

   Carter was unable to secure a much hoped-for meeting with the North's leader Kim Jong-il during his private but controversial peace mission. He began his Pyongyang trip on April 26, leading a delegation from the Elders, an independent group of 10 former heads of state.

   The former U.S. president did produce a personal message from Kim that said he was willing to hold a summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak any time on any subject, which South Korean officials described as nothing of note. In Seoul, his request for a meeting with President Lee was also rejected.

   Following his trip to the socialist state, Carter said the North Korean leader "specifically told us that he is prepared for a summit meeting directly with President Lee Myung-bak at any time to discuss any subject directly between the two heads of state," referring to the message he said he received from Kim hours earlier.

   "Although we did not meet with the leader of North Korea, when we had already departed from our guest home, we were asked to come back to receive a personal message," Carter said in a press conference in Seoul on April 28.

   Former Irish President Mary Robinson, who traveled to the North with Carter and two other former Western leaders, confirmed that the delegation had a written message read to them "to be conveyed."

   The delegation, comprising members of the Elders, spoke after they arrived in Seoul on a private jet from Pyongyang and met with a series of senior officials in Seoul. The members who traveled to the North also included former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and former Norwegian Prime Minister Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland.

   South Korea, which has repeatedly said it is open to a summit with North Korea, had yet to respond to the proposal. On April 26, South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan downplayed the Elders trip, saying Pyongyang should rather speak to Seoul directly.

   Under the two previous administrations that provided unconditional aid to the North, the South had two summit meetings in Pyongyang. The relations between the Koreas, however, plunged to the worst level in years after President Lee took office in 2008 with a policy linking aid to denuclearization efforts by North Korea.

   North Korea has reacted harshly. In November last year, the North bombarded a South Korean border island, killing four people. The South also holds the North responsible for the sinking of one of its warships in March last year, which claimed the lives of 46 sailors.

   Carter, who defused tensions on the Korean Peninsula by brokering a dramatic U.S.-North Korea nuclear deal in 1994, said Pyongyang is "very willing to discuss nuclear issues and any other military issues directly with South Korea, including at the highest level."

   The comments came amid the looming prospect that the North would propose holding a meeting of the nuclear envoys of the two Koreas as part of a Chinese plan to revive the six-party talks.

   In 1994, Carter also helped arrange summit talks between Kim's late father Kim Il-sung and then-South Korean President Kim Young-sam. The summit never took place because Kim Il-sung died suddenly of heart failure just weeks after Carter met him.

   Carter did not speak on April 28 of an American that the North said earlier in April it was preparing to indict for an unidentified crime against the communist regime. In his previous trip to the North last August, Carter brought back a U.S. man that had been detained for months after illegally entering North Korea.

   Deploring chronic food shortages in North Korea, Carter lashed out at South Korea, saying Seoul "deliberately" withholding food aid to North Korea constituted a human rights violation.

   He also said North Korean officials have expressed "deep" regrets for the deaths last year of South Korean nationals blamed on the North, but argued Pyongyang would never claim responsibility.

   Although Carter failed to yield an immediate breakthrough, a senior Obama administration official said on April 28 that the U.S. supports an inter-Korean summit to address South Korean grievances over the victims of North Korean provocations last year and to demonstrate North Korea's seriousness on nuclear dismantlement.

   "We believe North-South talks are an important opportunity for North Korea to demonstrate its sincerity and willingness to engage in dialogue and believe the proper format to address South Korean grievances would be through direct inter-Korean talks," the official told Yonhap News Agency, asking for anonymity.

   But Carter's visit to Pyongyang this time was controversial both in Seoul and Washington, with conservatives accusing him of acting as "a mouthpiece of the totalitarian regime while overlooking the nation's dismal human rights condition."

   Victor Cha, the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he saw "nothing new in the messages that were sent through Carter," adding, "It is insulting for Kim Jong-il to use an ex-president as messenger, and disgraceful."

   David Straub, associate director of the Korean studies program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, said it is "bizarre" that Kim Jong-il delivered a written message to Carter.

   "It strongly suggests to me that, among other things, Kim Jong-il did not want to have a give-and-take with President Carter, and preferred instead to convey to him a short message of platitudes, the real meaning of which could then not be probed," he said.

   In November, Pyongyang revealed a uranium enrichment plant, another way of making nuclear weapons separate from its plutonium program. Seoul and Washington want the U.N. Security Council to deal with this revelation before reopening any denuclearization talks. Pyongyang and Beijing insist that the uranium be discussed only at the six-party talks.

   Carter also blamed South Korea and the U.S. for aggravating the food shortages in North Korea by suspending humanitarian food aid for political reasons.

   U.S. food aid to the North was suspended in early 2009 amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests and controversy over the transparency of food distribution. Washington pledged to provide 500,000 tons of food in 2008, but delivered only 169,000 tons before the shipments were suspended in March 2009.

   U.S. officials have said they are assessing the food situation in the North, which is said to have had a poor harvest last year. The United Nations has called for the provision of 430,000 tons of food aid to North Korea immediately to avoid "the risk of malnutrition and other diseases" for millions of children, women and the elderly in the North, stricken by floods and severe winter weather.

   Critics say Pyongyang has been exaggerating the food shortages for political reasons, alleging North Korea is trying to hoard food in preparation for its distribution on the 100th anniversary of the birth of its late leader Kim Il-sung, the father of current leader, Kim Jong-il, which falls on April 15 next year.

   "On his latest trip to Pyongyang, Carter hurt his own reputation and weakened his influence by turning a blind eye to North Korea's human rights abuses," Cho Young-gi, a Korea University professor, said in a newspaper column published on April 29.

   "Carter even blamed South Korea for the worsening food crisis in the North. After arriving in Seoul, he merely played a role of a spokesman for North Korea by delivering the North Korean leader's message."

   An official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity, however, declined to elaborate on steps that the North should take. But he said he understands the prospect of a third summit between the divided Koreas is looming, describing it as "positive."

   Major South Korean newspapers carried editorials critical of Carter, saying his trip fell short of expectations and his role on the Korean Peninsula was over.

   "The reason Carter received a cold reaction is that he failed to meet with Kim Jong-il and the outcome of his trip was not significant," said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul.

   Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, also echoed disappointment with Carter's trip for lack of accomplishment, though he said Carter's efforts should be positively evaluated.

   Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, said, "In the long run, the only way to deal with North Korea is to compromise and talk and provide aid to Pyongyang." But he said he did not think that such an approach has a great chance of success in the current climate.

   On April 29, Seoul's foreign minister said North Korea has yet to show "sincerity" toward South Korea. "A genuine determination to improve inter-Korean relations is still not being felt from North Korea," Kim Sung-hwan said in a conference in Seoul.

   Saying that the North has been expanding a peace offensive through activities like inviting Carter to visit, Minister Kim said his country will continue to work with the United States to mount pressure on North Korea to change its behavior while leaving dialogue channels open.

   Kim, however, did not refer to the message that Carter delivered during his speech. "We will continue the two-track approach," he said, adding his government remains "cautious" in considering the resumption of food aid to the North because it may end up making up for a supply shortage caused by heavy investment in arms development.

   "If the North comes out for inter-Korean talks, we will consistently make sure that the North has a genuine willingness to give up its nuclear arms," Kim said.

  (END)