Carter secures release of U.S. citizen, departs N. Korea+

BEIJING/WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 Kyodo -
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter left North Korea on Friday morning after
securing the release of an American citizen who had been held there since
January for trespassing into North Korean territory from China.
The country's official Korean Central News Agency said Carter, following a
three-day visit, left Pyongyang after top leader Kim Jong Il granted a special
amnesty to Aijalon Gomes, a Boston man who had been sentenced to eight years of
hard labor.
The U.S. State Department welcomed the release of Gomes in a statement from
Washington, but it took pains to distance the U.S. government from the Carter
mission.
''We appreciate former President Carter's humanitarian effort and welcome North
Korea's decision to grant Mr. Gomes special amnesty and allow him to return to
the United States,'' spokesman Philip Crowley said in the statement.
''President Carter's trip was a private, humanitarian, and unofficial mission
solely for the purpose of bringing Mr. Gomes home and reuniting him with his
family,'' he said.
He added that the former president traveled at the invitation of the North
Korean government and the U.S. Government neither proposed nor arranged the
trip.
The Atlanta-based Carter Center, in a press statement, said Carter was leaving
Pyongyang together with Gomes after the latter was amnestied by Kim at his
request and for humanitarian purposes.
''It is expected that Mr. Gomes will be returned to Boston, Massachusetts,
early Friday afternoon, to be reunited with his mother and other members of his
family,'' the statement said.
KCNA reported that during Carter's talks with North Korea's No. 2 leader Kim
Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, the
former U.S. president ''made an apology...for American Gomes' illegal entry.''
''He asked Kim Yong Nam to convey to leader Kim Jong Il a message courteously
requesting him to grant special pardon to Gomes to leniently forgive him and
let him go home,'' it said.
Carter also ''gave him the assurance that such case will never happen again on
behalf of the government and the ex-president of the U.S,'' the report said.
KCNA called North Korea's decision to free Gomes, who reportedly taught English
at a South Korean elementary school, ''a manifestation of its humanitarianism
and peace-loving policy.''
In July, the official news agency had reported that Gomes had been hospitalized
after attempting to kill himself, ''driven by his strong guilty conscience,
disappointment and despair at the U.S. government that has not taken any
measure for his freedom.''
The previous month, North Korea had threatened through its official media to
exact ''harsher punishment'' on him if the United States persisted in its
hostile approach toward the country.
The U.S. State Department statement said that it had concurred with Carter's
decision to visit North Korea based on its assessment that ''Mr. Gomes' health
was at serious risk if he did not receive immediate care in the United
States.''
Meanwhile, the State Department issued a warning to U.S. citizens not to travel
to North Korea, saying, ''The U.S. and North Korea do not have diplomatic
relations and as the case of Mr. Gomes illustrates, travel to North Korea is
not routine or risk-free.''
KCNA said that in talks with Carter, Kim Yong Nam also voiced Pyongyang's will
''for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the resumption of the
six-party talks'' to that end which involve the two Koreas, the United States,
China, Japan and Russia.
The talks have been stalled since the last session was held in December 2008.
KCNA highly appraised Carter's latest visit, saying it ''provided a favorable
occasion of deepening the understanding and building confidence between the two
countries.''
Carter's mission, which the Carter Center stressed ''was neither requested nor
sponsored by the U.S. Government,'' came as Pyongyang's ties with Washington
and Seoul have been strained further over the North's alleged torpedo attack on
a South Korean warship in March that sank the vessel and killed 46 sailors.
The trip recalled one that Carter made to Pyongyang as a former president in
June 1994, at which time he met with the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung
amid rising tensions with the United States over the North's nuclear
development programs.
During his latest trip, however, the late Kim's son and successor Kim Jong Il
was in China.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton also visited North Korea last August to
secure the release of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who
were detained and faced 12 years' hard labor for illegally crossing the North
Korean border with China.
==Kyodo
2010-08-27 20:33:17


Delete & Prev | Delete & Next