Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter is willing to go to North Korea to broker negotiations over its nuclear weapons program, the New York Times reported Sunday.

In an interview at his home in Georgia, the 93-year-old Democrat said he made his intention known to President Donald Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, but has so far received a negative response.

"I would go, yes," Carter told the Times. "I told him (McMaster) that I was available if they ever need me."

   The former president flew to Pyongyang in 1994 to seek a solution to the nuclear impasse, and again in 2010 to win the release of a detained American citizen.

He said the current North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is "unpredictable" and could use nuclear weapons if he feels that he is under threat from Trump.

"I think he's now got advanced nuclear weaponry that can destroy the Korean Peninsula and Japan, and some of our outlying territories in the Pacific, maybe even our mainland," Carter said.

North Korea tested two long-range missiles in July and what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb last month. That prompted Trump to unleash a series of angry threats about wiping out the regime.

"I'm afraid, too, of a situation," Carter said. "I don't know what they'll do. Because they want to save their regime."

   He pointed out that China's influence on North Korea is greatly overestimated, especially in the absence of any known contact between Kim and Beijing.

Source : Yonhap