American Held in North Korea Returns.Mother of Nkorea Prisoner Thankful for Release.NKorea Frees American Imprisoned Since January

North Korea tells Carter wants to resume nuclear talks

North Korea’s number two leader has told former President Jimmy Carter that the reclusive state is committed to denuclearizing the peninsula and resuming six-way talks, the North’s state news agency said today.

Carter left the North today morning, KCNA said. The Carter Center in a statement from the former president said that he was leaving Pyongyang with an American who had been convicted of illegally entering the country.

U.S. citizen freed from North Korean jail after former President Jimmy Carter flies to Pyongyang to negotiate release

Protest: Aijalon Gomes is pictured in January near the disputed border between North and South Korea during a peace rally, days before his trespass offence and subsequent imprisonment

An American citizen was free today after spending almost seven months in a North Korean prison thanks to the intervention of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Aijalon Gomes, 31, had been sentenced to eight years' hard labour for trespassing and committing a 'hostile act' in the isolated dictatorship.

But former President Carter personally intervened, flying to North Korea's capital Pyongyang to negotiate with representatives of the state's reclusive leader Kim Jong Il.

Gomes - who is believed to have entered North Korea in support of another jailed American citizen - was pardoned by the 'supreme leader'.