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North Korea returns remains

───   08:39 Sat, 28 Jul 2018

North Korea returns remains | News Article

Seoul - North Korea has returned remains believed to be of 55 US troops killed during the Korean War, bringing renewed hope to families who have waited decades for closure.


BBC reports the return of the remains, brought to a US base in South Korea, is the latest move in the cautious diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang.

The repatriation was agreed at the June summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-Un.

The Singapore summit, where Trump and Kim agreed to work towards the "complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula", has been criticised for a lack of detail on when or how Pyongyang would renounce nuclear weapons.

But the return of US remains was one of four points actually listed in that June declaration and comes on the 65th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War.

It is believed that 55 soldiers have been returned this time, but their remains will need to be forensically tested to ensure they are indeed slain US troops - and it's possible the identification process could take years.

More than 326,000 Americans fought alongside soldiers from South Korea and a UN coalition during the war to support the South against the Communist North.

Thousands of US military personnel from the Korean war remain unaccounted for and most of them - about 5,300 - were lost in what is now North Korea.

The missing US soldiers are among around 33,000 coalition troops still unaccounted for.


BBC

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