(4 Aug 1997) English/Nat
Four sets of remains, believed to be those of U-S soldiers killed in the Korean War nearly a half century ago, were returned from North Korea on Monday.
They were the latest remains to be repatriated from North Korea since the United States was given access to the reclusive communist country a year and a half ago.
About 8,100 U-S servicemen remain unaccounted for from the war in which more than 50-thousand Americans died.
The remains were found by a 10-member U-S forensics team sent to the North in June to search for Americans from the 1950-53 Korean War.
Heavily cloudy skies and occasional rain greeted the return of the remains at this border village inside the demilitarized zone that separates the two rival Koreas.
Four North Korean soldiers handed the caskets containing the skeletal remains across the border.
They were received one by one by a U-N honour guard of four soldiers from the United States, Thailand, the Philippines and Columbia.
Monday's return follows a new agreement reached in May for three recovery operations this year.
U-S officials said the remains were recovered from an area about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the Chinese border where about 350 Americans are thought to have been killed in combat in October 1950.
So far, 209 sets of remains have been returned to the United States but only seven sets have been positively identified.
About 8100 U-S servicemen remain unaccounted for from the war, in which more than 50-thousand Americans died.
The recovery of remains of American war dead is a key U-S demand for improving relations with North Korea.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We have a journey home for four U-S soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Korean conflict in 1950."
SUPER CAPTION: Alan Liotta, U.S. Department of Defence Prisoner Of War Missing Personnel Department
After a short service the remains were flown to the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for forensic tests.
The first joint U-S-North Korea recovery was in 1996, when one set of remains believed to be those of a U-S soldier was returned.
This latest return comes only a day before North Korean negotiators are scheduled to sit down in New York with representatives of South Korea, China and the United States to begin talks on a permanent peace treaty.
The Korean War ended without a peace treaty, only a shaky armistice that left the two Koreas still technically at war.
Their border remains the most heavily guarded in the world, with two (m) million troops on both sides.
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