Return of remains could lead to Korea treaty
U.S. war dead flown home as part of promise by Kim during visit by Trump
PYEONGTAEK, SOUTH KOREA— North Korea on Friday returned the remains of what are believed to be U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War, the White House said, with a U.S military plane making a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 cases of remains.
The handover follows through on a promise North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made to U.S. President Donald Trump when the leaders met in June, and is the first tangible result from the much-hyped summit. The United Nations Command said 55 cases of remains were retrieved from North Korea. The White House earlier confirmed that a U.S. air force C-17 aircraft containing remains of fallen service members had departed Wonsan, a northern coastal city, on its way to the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, near the South Korean capital of Seoul.
Aformal repatriation ceremony will be held there Wednesday.
At the airbase, U.S. servicemen and a military honour guard lined up on the tarmac to receive the remains, which were carried in boxes covered in blue UN flags.
About 7,700 U.S. soldiers are listed as missing from the 195053 Korean War, and 5,300 of the remains are believed to still be in North Korea. The war killed millions, including 36,000 American soldiers.
U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, in a statement from the UN Command, called the retrieval mis- sion successful.
“Now, we will prepare to honour our fallen before they continue on their journey home.”
Following the honours ceremony on Wednesday, the remains will be flown to Hawaii for scientific testing.
A series of forensic examinations will be done to determine if the remains are human and if the dead were American or allied troops killed in the conflict.
Officials in North Korea had no comment on the handover on Friday, the 65th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, which the country celebrated as the day of “victory in the fatherland liberation war.”
The repatriation of remains could be followed by stronger North Korean demands for fast-tracked discussions to formally end the war, which was stopped with an armistice and not a peace treaty.
South Korea’s Defence Ministry also said the North agreed to general-level military talks next week at a border village to discuss reducing tensions across the countries’ heavily armed border.
The remains are believed to be some of the more than 200 that North Korea has held in storage for some time, and were likely recovered from land during farming or construction.
The vast majority of the war dead, however, have yet to be located and retrieved from cemeteries and battlefields across the countryside.
Efforts to recover American war dead had been stalled for more than a decade because of a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program and a previous U.S. claim that security arrangements for its personnel working in the North were insufficient.
From 1996 to 2005, joint U.S.North Korea military search teams conducted 33 recovery operations that collected 229 sets of American remains.
The last time North Korea turned over remains was in 2007, when Bill Richardson, a former UN ambassador and New Mexico governor, secured the return of six sets.
North Korea has held out the return of remains as a symbol of its goodwill and intention to improve ties with Washington.
Pyongyang has nevertheless expressed its willingness to allow the resumption of joint search missions in the country to retrieve more remains.
Such missions had been held from 1996 until they were cancelled by President George W. Bush amid heightening tensions over the North’s nuclear program in 2005.