US, N.Korea Consider New Talks on War Remains
With at least two remains of American soldiers newly discovered in North Korea, officials of both countries on Monday indicated progress towards talks on a joint recovery operation to find more Americans killed during the Korean War.
Source : Korea Times
With at least two remains of American soldiers newly discovered in North Korea, officials of both countries on Monday indicated progress towards talks on a joint recovery operation to find more Americans killed during the Korean War.
North Korea, after initially reporting it had discovered the remains of 415 Americans, now says it has found only ``four or five.'' U.S. officials say they believe North Korea has so far accounted for just two soldiers in the latest discoveries during bulldozing operations at a reclamation project near Unsan.
A Pentagon statement said U.S. officials are proposing a resumption of talks with North Korea which were cut off in December after North Korea sought economic assistance in exchange for a joint recovery operation.
Amb. Li Gun, a North Korean U.N. envoy, said Monday he could make no announcement, but he said resumed talks are the subject of discussions in North Korea. He said there were some ``technical mistakes'' in the original report of 415 bodies.
``We have four or five remains,'' Li said. Earlier, he said that U.S. officials would be welcome in North Korea to review the new discoveries.
Pentagon officials said last week they hoped to send a small team of forensics experts from the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, where bodies of Americans from the Korean and Vietnam wars have been examined.
Defense Secretary William Cohen, who was returning Monday from a European trip, said last week that North Korea had tentatively agreed to meetings to discuss missing Americans from the Korean War. Previous U.S.-North Korean talks were in Berlin.
U.S. officials believe the earlier North Korean references to 415 remains apparently reflected a U.S. estimate of how many Americans were killed on the battlefields near Unsan, 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Pyongyang.
About 8,200 American servicemen are listed as missing from the 1950-53 Korean War. Over the past three years, joint recovery operations with North Korea have unearthed 42 sets of remains.
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