There will be a lot of planes in the air tomorrow flying around the world just to deal with North Korea. Is this all just a way to max out on frequent flyer miles?

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday he and other former heads of state traveling to North Korea this week hope to meet with reclusive leader Kim Jong-il and his heir-apparent son to help break a deadlock in efforts to denuclearize Pyongyang.

Carter, however, said in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency that he has yet to hear from North Korea whether such a meeting has been arranged.

In an earlier statement, the delegation, from a group called “The Elders,” said the former heads of state “aim to see how we may be of assistance in reducing tensions and help the parties address key issues including denuclearization.”

The group, scheduled to fly into Pyongyang on Tuesday, makes its trip at the invitation of the North as tension runs high on the Korean Peninsula since North Korea bombarded a South Korean island and killed four people last November. The North, which conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, also continues to turn a blind eye to outside calls for a “sincere and serious attitude” to reopen six-nation nuclear talks.

(…)Carter’s visit comes amid a diplomatic flurry to revive the six-party talks. A South Korean delegation will visit Washington Tuesday to meet with Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, and other U.S. officials to discuss the nuclear talks and other bilateral and regional issues.

Chinese chief nuclear envoy Wu Dawei will visit Seoul on Tuesday for talks on ways to resume the six-party nuclear talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

Really, this is a huge waste of jet fuel, to maintain the fiction of no direct talks – why President Carter is going – or to avoid the Six-Party framework.

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Filed under: East Asia, Korea, USA Tagged: china, jimmy carter, kim jong il, kurt campbell, north korea, South Korea, wu dawei