Jimmy Carter Headed To North Korea on Rescue Mission

Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly going to North Korea to gain the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a 30-year-old Boston man who was arrested in April crossing into North Korea from China, and sentenced to 8 years in prison.

There will be no U.S. government officials on the trip and Carter is traveling in his capacity as a private citizen, our sources report — much like when former President Bill Clinton traveled to Pyongyang last August to bring home Current TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who had wandered across the North Korean border with China and were promptly arrested and threatened with years of hard labor.

…

Carter has personal experience dealing with North Korea. In a dramatic and controversial June 1994 trip, after North Korea threatened to reprocess its spent nuclear fuel and the Clinton administration called for U.N. sanctions, the former president flew to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Il’s father, Kim Il Sung, and successfully persuaded him to negotiate.

This time, leading Korea experts say, Carter’s trip should not be seen as a change in U.S. policy toward Pyongyang and will likely not yield any breakthrough in what most see as a diplomatic stalemate between the two sides.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.