The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A thank-you to N. Korea for returning war dead
The president said Kim Jong Un had fulfilled a “promise”; a U.S. plane flew to the North to pick up 55 cases said to hold remains.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday for “fulfilling a promise” to return the remains of U.S. soldiers missing from the Korean War, as a U.S. military plane made a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 cases said to contain remains.
Close to 7,700 U.S. soldiers remain unaccounted for from the 1950-53 Korean War, and about 5,300 of those were lost in North Korea.
North Korea’s move signals a positive step in Trump’s diplomacy with Pyongyang, and may restart efforts to send U.S. teams into the country to search for additional war dead.
But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis cautioned that the transfer of remains “is separate” from what has so far been troubled efforts to negotiate the complete denuclearization of North Korea. But he said it was a step in the right direction following the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.
“This is obviously a gesture of carrying forward what they agreed to in Singapore and we take it as such,” Mattis told reporters Friday. “We also look at it as a first step of a restarted process. So we do want to explore additional efforts to bring others home.”
Despite soaring rhetoric about denuclearization before the Singapore meeting, the summit ended with only a vague aspirational goal for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how that would occur.
Subsequent talks between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korea officials got off to a rocky start earlier this month, with the North accusing the U.S. of making “unilateral and gangster-like” demands on denuclearization. On Wednesday, Pompeo said a great deal of work remains ahead of a North Korea denuclearization deal, but he declined to provide any timeline.
Trump, addressing reporters on the South Lawn, said Vice President Mike Pence would greet the families and the remains of the soldiers. Pence, the son of a Korean War combat veteran, said he will participate in the ceremony when the remains arrive in the U.S. United Nations Command said the remains will be flown to Hawaii immediately after a full honors ceremony in Seoul on Wednesday.