AFP - Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday began a visit to North Korea aimed at easing tensions on the divided peninsula, but South Korea reacted sceptically to the mission.
Carter and three other retired world leaders accompanying him say they also want to assess food shortages and help revive stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
Schoolchildren greeted a smiling Carter and his party at Pyongyang airport with bouquets.
But in Seoul, Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan said he expects little from the trip. Efforts to improve North-South relations are deadlocked, with the North refusing to accept blame for two deadly border incidents last year.
The six-party talks have not been held since December 2008 and in May 2009 Pyongyang staged its second nuclear weapons test. In November it disclosed a uranium enrichment plant, a potential second way to build atomic weapons.
China has been pushing to restart the six-party forum that it chairs, but South Korea and the United States say the North must first mend cross-border relations.
"I don't have much expectations as this (Carter) trip is purely personal," Kim told a briefing.
"Personally, I don't see why North Korea would send a message through a third party or civilians... when various channels for (inter-Korean) dialogue are open."
Before any major dialogue takes place, Seoul wants Pyongyang to accept responsibility for the sinking of a warship in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives.
The North denies involvement in the sinking, and says that an artillery attack on a South Korean island last November -- which killed four people including civilians -- was provoked by a Seoul military drill.
Carter's delegation, from a group known as The Elders, has said it hopes to meet leader Kim Jong-Il and Kim's son and heir apparent Jong-Un, although nothing has been arranged.
The North's persistent food shortages will be a key topic, after UN food agencies estimated that six million people -- a quarter of the population -- urgently need aid.
"It is a horrible situation there and we hope to induce other countries to help alleviate (the food crisis), including South Korea, which has cut off all supplies of food materials to North Koreans," Carter told journalists in Beijing Monday.
"When there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer the least."
About 350 activists who protested in Seoul Tuesday against North Korea's regime issued a statement describing Carter's apparent criticism of Seoul's food policy as "complete nonsense".
Carter will visit Seoul Thursday and Friday and meet the foreign minister.
China's nuclear envoy Wu Dawei arrived in Seoul Tuesday for talks on ways to resume the six-party dialogue which also involves Japan and Russia.
Minister Kim said he believes China, the North's sole major ally, supports proposals for inter-Korean talks as a prelude to six-party dialogue.
But he expressed hope that Wu would not "speak for a certain country (North Korea)".
Park Hyeong-Jung, of the Korea Institute for National Unification, termed Carter's visit "a good propaganda opportunity" for North Korea.
"I believe that Kim Jong-Il, if he meets the delegates, will only shower them with seemingly hopeful but all non-binding promises," he said.
Also in the delegation are former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, ex-Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and former Irish president Mary Robinson.
Carter visited Pyongyang in 1994 for talks with founding President Kim Il-Sung, after the United States came close to war with the communist state over its nuclear weapons programme.
He visited again last August to secure the release of a detained US citizen.
Some analysts believe Carter will this week try to secure the freedom of a Korean-American detained since last November, reportedly for missionary work.
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