Former President Jimmy Carter offers to travel to North Korea to help Trump broker a nuclear deal with Kim Jong Un

AP Photo/John Bazemore

Jimmy Carter.

• Former President Jimmy Carter has offered to travel to North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un in a bid to break the diplomatic stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang over denuclearization.
• Democratic Representative Ro Khanna told Politico that Carter had expressed a willingness to travel to the rogue state.
• He said that Carter's experience negotiating a denuclearization framework with Kim Jong Un's grandfather could be a vital asset to the Trump administration.
• Carter became the first US president to visit North Korea in 1994, where he met with Kim Il Sung, the country's former leader.
• Negotiations between Trump and Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, broke down last week, leaving denuclearization negotiations in deadlock.

Former President Jimmy Carter has offered to travel to North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un in a bid to break the diplomatic stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang over the denuclearization of the rogue state.

Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, told Politico that the former president had expressed his willingness to travel to North Korea in a conversation on Thursday.

"I think President Carter can help (President Trump) for the sake of the country," Khanna later told CNN.

Carter was the first US president to travel to North Korea, visiting the country in 1994 to meet Kim's grandfather, former leader Kim Il Sung. Carter's visit helped to defuse the first North Korean nuclear crisis, paving the way for the Agreed Framework, in which North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program in exchange for aid.

He returned to the country in 2010, where he helped secure the release of American captive Aijalon Gomes.

In the interview with CNN, Khanna said that Carter's experience negotiating with Kim's grandfather would be an asset for the Trump administration, following last week's collapse of negotiations between Kim Jong Un and President Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam.

"I think it would be so profound because he could talk to Kim Jong Un about his grandfather and the framework he established," Khanna said.

Khanna said that he and Carter had on Thursday been discussing plans to revive the denuclearization plans the former president brokered with Kim Il Sung, to develop a new joint framework for peace.

The Carter Centre and White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Carter seems to hold no great respect for Trump, and in an appearance on Stephen Colbert's show in March 2018 agreed when the host said Trump's election showed Americans were willing to elect a "jerk" as president. Trump meanwhile has derided Carter's leadership and "everyman" image while in the White House.

However, Carter has previously made efforts to broker a relationship with the administration, and was critical of hostile press coverage of Trump in October 2017, when he first offered to help Trump negotiate with Kim.

"I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I've known about," Carter told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

"I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation."

Then remarks were welcomed by Trump, who tweeted: "Just read the nice remarks by President Jimmy Carter about me and how badly I am treated by the press (Fake News)."

"Thank you Mr. President!"

The nuclear summit between Trump and Kim came unstuck when Kim demanded an end to US sanctions.

Analysts earlier in the week said that satellite imagery showed North Korea had started rebuilding a long-range missile launch site in the wake of the collapse of the negotiations.