N. KOREA HANDS OVER REMAINS OF U.S. SOLDIERS
Pyongyang’s move marks partial fulfilment of agreement with US in Singapore summit
AUNITED States military aircraft flew the remains of more than 50 American servicemen out of North Korea yesterday, prompting a personal “thank you” from Donald Trump to Kim Jong-un.
The return of the remains — on the 65th anniversary of the end of the Korean War — marks the partial fulfilment of an agreement reached between the US president and North Korea’s leader at their historic summit in Singapore last month.
“After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jongun,” Trump said in a tweet.
The White House said it was “encouraged” by the return of the remains and the “momentum for positive change”.
“Today’s actions represent a significant first step to recommence the repatriation of remains from North Korea and to resume field operations in North Korea to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who have not yet returned home,” it said.
After leaving the North Korean port city of Wonsan, the C-17 cargo plane landed at the Osan US Air Base in South Korea, where American soldiers stood in ceremonial ranks.
The plane — which had 55 sets of remains on board, according to the United Nations Command (UNC) in South Korea — came to a halt next to a group of 10 honour guards carrying the flags of the UN, the US and South Korea.
After the rear door was opened, other uniformed guards went aboard and re-emerged, each carrying in their arms a box draped in a white-and-blue UN flag.
They then slowly walked to awaiting vans, put the boxes in the vehicles and saluted, before the vans left the scene.
“It was a successful mission following extensive coordination,” General Vincent Brooks, commander of the UNC and United States Forces Korea, said.
“Now, we will prepare to honour our fallen before they continue on their journey home.”
More than 35,000 Americans were killed on the Korean Peninsula during the war, out of which around 7,700 are still considered missing, including 5,300 in North Korea alone, according to the Pentagon.
Between 1990 and 2005, 229 sets of remains from the North were repatriated, but those operations were suspended when ties deteriorated over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
The remains flown to Osan yesterday are expected to be sent to Hawaii for forensic identification, following a formal repatriation ceremony on Wednesday.
Trump has hailed his summit agreement with Kim as effectively ending the North Korean nuclear threat, although it contained only an ill-defined commitment on Pyongyang’s part to the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” — a long way from the complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament demanded by Washington.
The issue of repatriating remains of American war dead was seen as a far less contentious one, and the summit agreement specified the immediate return of those remains “already identified”.