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By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington correspondent

It has now been revealed that University of Georgia North Korea expert Park Han-shik sponsored former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s visit to North Korea. Moreover, Carter’s visit reportedly came after talks between Carter’s team, which pushed the visit first, and the U.S. government, in contrast to former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s visit to North Korea last year.

When the situation on the Korean Peninsula became strained due to the sinking of the Cheonan, Park in late June advised Carter to become directly involved in peace on the Korean Peninsula. Carter also reportedly indicated he was prepared to actively step forward. Park has deep ties with North Korea, having visited the country about 50 times, and has known Carter since the early 1970s, when the latter was governor of Georgia. When Carter pushed for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea in 1976, Park advised him to reconsider, and in 1994, when Carter made his first visit to North Korea, it was Park who made prior preparations.

Park talked with North Korean figures regarding a visit by Carter during a visit to Pyongyang on July 3 to 8. Afterwards, North Korea reportedly sent an invitation to the Carter Center in Atlanta through North Korea’s UN delegation in New York. The Carter Center negotiated with the White House and State Department, and recently made a final decision on the visit. It appears the examination of Gomes by a medical team sent by the U.S. State Department also played an important role in the decision by Carter to visit.

During a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh on Tuesday, Park suggested that Carter, at his age, would not go all the way to North Korea only to rescue Gomes. Park said he thought during the visit that the former U.S. president would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, discuss the nuclear issue and Cheonan sinking, and convey the discussion to the U.S. government.

Park also said the Carter he knows is not just familiar with Korean issues, but also has a sense of mission to contribute to peace on the Korean Peninsula. He said Carter thinks problems in Korea should be resolved peacefully by continuing dialogue. He added that if Carter’s visit has an impact on U.S. policy toward North Korea, South Korea’s policy towards North Korea will also have to reflect this.

North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang Broadcasting and others reported that Carter and his team arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday, and that he was greeted at the airport by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan. This was the only information mentioned in the report.

L. Gordon Flake, the director of the Mansfield Foundation, said, “Carter’s visit is unlikely to become an opportunity for new diplomatic dialogue, and it is not probable that a breakthrough in North Korea-U.S. relations will result.”

Korea Economic Institute (KEI) Director Jack Pritchard, who served as a special envoy during the Bush Administration, said, “The Carter visit could, regardless of U.S. intentions, send a mistaken signal to North Korea that the United States is trying move past sinking of the Cheonan.”

Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Thomas Hubbard, however, said during an interview with Foreign Policy, “You can‘t expect President Carter to take orders and do things the way the president wants it done, but to my mind it’s a risk worth taking.” John Feffer, co-director of the progressive Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, said, “North Korea will use the visit as an opportunity to send a strong proposal to the United States, and the Obama administration should prepare to think again about dropping its existing containment policy in favor of an engagement policy.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notably called a high-level meeting to evaluate North Korea policy earlier this month. The preparation for the meeting was entrusted to the State Department policy office, not the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, headed by Kurt Campbell, which has handled working-level duties regarding North Korea policy. The policy office handles planning big-picture foreign policy.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]