THE FORMER PRESIDENT of Ireland Mary Robinson has finished a three-day tour of North Korea, travelling as part of a group of retired world leaders known as The Elders.

Robinson toured North Korea alongside former US president Jimmy Carter, former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. The aim of the visit was to help ease tensions between the Koreas, assess food shortages and push for nuclear disarmament.

The leaders concluded that the food situation in North Korea amounted to a crisis – with Carter accusing the United States and South Korea of a “human rights violation” for withholding food aid from the North, AFP reports. Robinson said that the food shortages were “extremely serious”.

Yesterday the group met with Kim Yong-Nam, the North’s de facto head of state, and presented a gift for leader Kim Jong-Il  - however the country’s official news agency made no mention of whether they met with the leader of the isolated communist state, RTÉ reports.