Former President Carter on Sunday said he approved of President Trump’s decision to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Speaking at a Sunday school class at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., Carter said that “while I don’t agree with everything that President Trump has done, I think it’s good that he’s decided to go,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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“If we could avoid a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, that would be a wonderful achievement,” the 93-year-old former Democratic president reportedly told his class.
A South Korean official on Thursday announced at the White House that Trump had agreed to meet with Kim, in what would be the first face-to-face meeting between a sitting U.S. president and the current leader of North Korea.
The decision stunned Washington and left many lawmakers and foreign policy officials grappling with its possible ramifications for the administration’s ongoing “maximum pressure” campaign, which aims to force Pyongyang to curb its nuclear program.
North Korea has said it will hold off on further testing as negotiations proceed.
Carter himself has direct experience dealing with North Korean leadership, having met with Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, to negotiate a resumption of dialogue between the two countries back in 1994.