Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, along with three former European leaders, left Pyongyang Thursday noon after concluding their three-day visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

At the airport, Carter was seen off by Ri Yong Ho, DPRK vice foreign minister.

Carter smiled and waved hands to reporters from the DPRK, China and Russia staking out the airport, but he did not talk to them. The reporters were only allowed to stand within a designated area and couldn't get close to Carter.

He boarded the plane soon after he got off the limousine and shook hands with Ri Yong Ho.

Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK met Carter at the Mansudae Assembly Hall Wednesday.

Carter, along with presidents Martti Ahtisaari of Finland and Mary Robinson of Ireland and former Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland, arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday aboard a private jet. Pak Ui Chun, foreign minister of the DPRK, met him on the same day.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2002, said Sunday that the visit would concentrate on Pyongyang's nuclear program and food aid needs.

Carter, who served as U.S. president from 1977 to 1981, made a historic trip to the DPRK for the first time in 1994 to help defuse a crisis over the country's nuclear program.

He paid a three-day private visit to Pyongyang last August to secure the release of an American citizen, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who had been detained by the DPRK for entering the country illegally.