Ex-US president Jimmy Carter ‘to visit North Korea on peace mission’ as Trump refuses help

The 39th president, a Democrat, wants to play a role in resolving the escalating situation, just as he did in 1994 during the Bill Clinton administration and in 2010 and 2011 during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Park Han-shik, a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, said he met the 93-year-old at his home in Georgia last month.

He said: “To raise the credibility of his intentions, we talked about Carter sending his opinion on the current situation to the newspapers.

“He did write an editorial, and his intention to visit Pyongyang has already been delivered to North Korean officials.

“We have yet to get answers from the North Koreans, but I’m sure they’re giving it deep consideration.”

Mr Carter warned last Wednesday of another possible Korean war, writing an editorial in the Washington Post in which he said the US should consider sending a “high-level delegation” to the hermit kingdom for peace talks.

Mr Park said the former president has offered to help Donald Trump several times, but has not received a positive response.

The professor said Mr Trump told Mr Carter the North Korea issue should be handled by the current administration and not by a former president.

Mr Trump also told Mr Carter to leave him alone, Mr Park added.

Mr Carter, who runs the non-profit Carter Center, is well-respected in North Korea for his role in helping work out a 1994 nuclear deal which may have averted a war.

The former president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, does not necessarily wish to be in a special envoy this time, although his position would give the delegation more authority, Mr Park said.

Mr Park, added: “We still have to watch North Korea’s reaction.

“We might be able to talk with Trump again if North Korea sends an official invitation.

“Should Trump steadfastly oppose the idea then we have to think about what we’ll do next.”

Kim Jong-un has tested six nuclear missiles this year, while Mr Trump has reacted with increasingly brash words, prompting more severe reactions from the North and stoking fears a war will break out.

Mr Carter, a former peanut farmer and Naval officer who lost his presidency to Ronald Regan, was secretly sent to North Korea by President Clinton in 1994 as part of a peace mission after Kim Jong-il, the current leader’s father, threatened to begin processing spent nuclear fuel.

Mr Carter was seen as a way to let Kim Senior back down without losing face.

He successfully negotiated an understanding with Kim and went further to outline a treaty which he announced on television without the White House’s permission, in a bid to force the US into action.

The Clinton administration signed an agreement under which North Korea agreed to freeze and dismantle its nuclear programme and comply with nonproliferation obligations in exchange for oil, light water reactors and discussions for eventual diplomatic relations.

However, eight years later, that collapsed during a dispute between the George W. Bush administration and Kim Senior in which the president called North Korea part of an “Axis of Evil”.

In 2010 Mr Carter again travelled to North Korea where he successfully secured the release of American, Aijalon Mahli Gomes who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labour for illegally entering the country.

A year later, the former president joined an ex-Finnish president, ex-Norwegian prime minister and ex-Irish president in Pyongyang for talks with North Korea’s leader, and his then heir apparent, Kim Jong-un to demand the North abandoned its atomic weapons ambitions.