SEOUL, South Korea Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in North Korea on Wednesday, the communist nations state media reported, on a mission aimed at bringing home an imprisoned American.
Carter and his party were greeted at the Pyongyang airport by top North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan, North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch.
The dispatch gave no further details. U.S. officials had said late Monday in Washington that Carter would make the rare journey to North Korea to win the release of a 31-year-old sentenced to eight years in prison for entering the communist country illegally in January.
Aijalon Mahli Gomes, from Boston, was taken into custody after crossing into the country illegally from China.
North Korea agreed to release him to Carter if the ex-president made the journey to Pyongyang, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press in Washington.
Carter was expected to spend one night in North Korea and return home with Gomes on Thursday, a second U.S. official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The senior U.S. official stressed that Carter was not representing the U.S. government and was on a private mission, such as when former U.S. President Bill Clinton traveled to Pyongyang last summer to secure the release of two American journalists also sentenced for trespassing. No U.S. officials were to travel with Carter, the official said.
U.S. officials have pressed for Gomes release on humanitarian grounds, citing his health and reports that Gomes attempted suicide while in custody.
The pleas come amid a standoff over blame for the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. Seoul and Washington blame Pyongyang for the incident; North Korea denies involvement.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington.
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