Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter described talking with former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in great detail in his memoirs, “Sharing Good Times” (2004), and said he would be willing to go to North Korea again if necessary to mediate whenever the pace of nuclear negotiations slowed.
And former President Carter did indeed visit North Korea again, in August of last year. The advertized purpose of that visit was to bring a detained American home; however, he no doubt also hoped to make a contribution to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula by talking face-to-face with Kim Jong Il.
But, the day after Carter’s arrival in North Korea, Kim suddenly swept away to China at dawn. The former President was humiliated as he waited for the leader to return, even extending his schedule by a day, but the meeting never took place.
Now, Carter is scheduled to visit North Korea again.
Former President Carter met Kim Il Sung twice in 1994, emerging with an expression of North Korea’s will to remain in the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), a temporary freeze on its nuclear developments, the resumption of meetings between the United States and North Korea and a vow to organization a first inter-Korean summit. It was said that Carter had made a significant contribution to clearing the dark clouds of crisis which were then hanging over the Korean Peninsula.
Afterward, former President Carter suggested that the Korean Peninsula had avoided the ravages of war due to his efforts, and called the North Korea visit one of his most successful attempts at international mediation.
Following that visit, which became the foundation of the Agreed Framework, nuclear negotiations ran for 17 long years. Several meetings and agreements emerged; bilateral talks between North Korea and the United States, the Six-Party Talks and September 19th Joint Statement to name but three.
But at the same time, since the North Koreans had agreed to halt plutonium weapons development under the Agreed Framework, they shifted to running a uranium enrichment program in secret, preparing the ground for the second nuclear crisis, and conducted two nuclear and a number of missile tests.
North Korea came to the negotiating table saying it was willing to give up its nuclear program; however, this was a smokescreen and, now that North Korea has officially said it wishes to become a recognized nuclear state, skepticism about the United States’ past approaches to North Korea has grown.
The Obama administration’s “strategic patience” policy incorporates these historical lessons, while it is increasingly said that the meetings between former President Carter and Kim Il Sung were actually little more than a performance to escape from a crisis, but one which lacked any sincerity.
Now even Christopher Hill, a former U.S. Chief Negotiator to the Six-Party Talks who maintained a very soft line on North Korea throughout his tenure, has criticized the North for lying to him over a number of years.
And yet, former President Carter appears hope undimmed.
In a column for the Washington Post in November of last year, Carter asserted, “Pyongyang has sent a consistent message that during direct talks with the United States, it is ready to conclude an agreement to end its nuclear programs, put them all under IAEA inspection and conclude a permanent peace treaty to replace the ‘temporary’ cease-fire of 1953.”
Furthermore, he went on, “No one can completely understand the motivations of the North Koreans, but it is entirely possible that their recent revelation of their uranium enrichment centrifuges and Pyongyang’s shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday are designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future.”
North Korea has consistently carried forward its nuclear developments but at the same time extracted economic aid from the international community via temporary halts and minor detours. It is clear that the international community now knows North Korea’s addiction to nuclear weapons will be very difficult to end through conversation.
But former President Carter does not, and if he goes to North Korea this time with his 1994 thinking, he will forge only a repetition of 1994. North Korea will advertise his visit noisily and employ it to try and escape from its international isolation. Finally, Pyongyang may even be able to extract an opportunity to return to the negotiating table, but without an apology for its provocations or a specific denuclearization plan.
Former President Carter was labeled the worst of presidents during his term, but became an internationally respected statesman thereafter, even winning a Nobel Peace Prize. It is unfortunate, then, that his obviously good intentions do not work in North Korea, but it is more unfortunate that a man of nearly ninety would approach North Korea with so naïve a viewpoint.
“We have not had any contact with him other than being informed about the trip,” the U.S. State Department announced on March 24th, adding that Carter will not be carrying a message from the Obama government. Meanwhile, the people of the Korean Peninsula are more worried than expectant. The Daily NK, for one, would hate to see former President Carter become a ‘useful idiot’ for Kim Il Sung, son Kim Jong Il and now even Kim Jong Eun.
