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First two U.S. troops from North Korean remains identified

Jennie Jin, a forensic anthropologist who leads the Korea War Project at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), shows some of the objects that accompanied the human remains handed over by North Korea, including a wallet, buttons and canteens, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii September 10, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Stewart

By Phil Stewart

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM (Reuters) – The U.S. military has identified the first two American troops from 55 boxes of human remains from the 1950-53 Korean War that North Korea handed over in July, the agency leading the analysis said on Monday.

The identities are expected to be officially announced in the coming days after the troops’ relatives are informed.

“We will notify the family first,” said John Byrd, director of scientific analysis at the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, as he stood among the remains undergoing review in Hawaii.

President Donald Trump’s administration has hailed the handover of the remains as evidence of the success of his summit with North Koran leader Kim Jong Un in June. The White House said on Monday it was looking at scheduling a second meeting.

Critics, however, say the summit has so far failed to deliver on promised steps to get Kim to abandon his nuclear weapons program.

The identifications will chip away at the 7,699 U.S. troops who the U.S. military says remain unaccounted for from the Korean War. About 5,300 were lost in what is now North Korea.

Forensic anthropologists are combing through the remains at a secure facility on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Byrd and Jennie Jin, who leads the agency’s Korean War Project, explained the painstaking identification process which includes methods for finding DNA in bone fragments.

Sampling for DNA analysis has been carried out so far on about half of the boxes of remains, they said. Some bone fragments are as small as a quarter. Other bones have decayed so much that they are little longer than a pencil.

‘HUGE BATTLE’

However, the sets of bones from the two soon-to-be-identified troops are far more complete.

“We noticed … within a few seconds of opening up the box, and pulling him out, that we think this individual is African American and tall and slender,” Byrd said. “And that kind of realization that we have was made possible because of the relatively more complete condition (of the remains).”

The remains of both servicemembers came from the same 1950 battlegrounds near the Chongchon River in what is present-day North Korea. U.S. troops suffered heavy casualties there against Chinese forces that had intervened in the war.

“It’s a huge battle,” said Jin, who estimated that 1,700 of the missing U.S. forces from the war came from that fight alone.

She spoke above tables of bone fragments, still separated with numbers corresponding with the 55 boxes.

Other tables included personal objects from soldiers that don’t have any identification on them, including buttons, canteens and old boots.

Byrd acknowledged that it could take months for the next round of identifications. “There could be some more and maybe right after Christmas,” he said.

Jin, a South Korean-born American citizen, said the work has a personal connection. Her grandfather, now 90, is a survivor of the war who came from one of the areas of present-day North Korea that saw some of the heaviest fighting. He was evacuated south on a U.S. Navy ship, she said.

“It’s really personal to me,” Jin said.

The July transfer coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting between North Korean and Chinese forces and South Korean and U.S.-led forces under the U.N. Command.

The two sides remain technically at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

The United States and North Korea conducted joint searches for remains from 1996 until 2005, when Washington halted the operations citing concerns about the safety of its personnel as Pyongyang stepped up its nuclear program.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Paul Tait and David Stamp)

U.S. says remains returned by North Korea likely American

United Nations Command Chaplain U.S. Army Col. Sam Lee performs a blessing of sacrifice and remembrance on the 55 boxes of remains thought to be of U.S. soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, returned by North Korea to the U.S., at the Osan Air Base in South Korea, July 27, 2018. U.S. Army/ Sgt. Quince Lanford/Handout via REUTERS

By Josh Smith

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea (Reuters) – More than 50 boxes handed over by North Korea to the United States last week appear to hold human remains from the 1950-1953 Korean War and are likely American, according to an initial forensic analysis, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

A U.S. military transport aircraft on Friday flew the remains from the North Korean city of Wonsan, a first step in implementing an agreement reached at a landmark summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in June.

“There is no reason to doubt that they do relate to Korean War losses,” John Byrd, director of analysis for the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), told reporters at Osan air base in South Korea, just before the remains were due to be flown to Hawaii for further analysis and identification.

More than 7,700 U.S. troops remain unaccounted for from the Korea War. About 5,300 were lost in what is now North Korea.

Byrd said a single identification “dog tag” was also handed over by the North Koreans. The soldier’s family had been notified, though it was not clear if his remains were among those found, Byrd said.

Experts say positively identifying the decades-old remains could take anywhere from days to decades.

Still, the initial “field forensic review” indicates that the “remains are what North Korea said they were”, Byrd said.

The North Koreans provided enough specifics about where each suspected body was found that U.S. officials have matched them to specific battles fought from 1950 to 1951, though not necessarily individuals, he said.

A U.S. airwoman salutes during a repatriation ceremony for remains transferred by North Korea, at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea August 1, 2018. Jung Yeon-je/Pool via REUTERS

“CHERISHED DUTY”

Dozens of American, South Korean and other soldiers and officials from U.N. countries that fought in the Korean War conducted a ceremony with full military honors before the remains were loaded into military transport aircraft for the flight to Hawaii on Wednesday.

The remains had been transferred from the small boxes they arrived in on Friday into full-sized caskets, draped with U.N. flags.

Officials from U.N.-allied nations laid wreaths, a military band played somber music, an honor guard fired a salute and troops saluted as the caskets sat in a hangar just off a runway.

“For the warrior, this is a cherished duty, a commitment made to one another before going into battle and passed on from one generation of warriors to the next,” said U.S. General Vincent Brooks, top commander of U.S. and U.N. forces in South Korea. “And for all in attendance, this is a solemn reminder that our work is not complete until all have been accounted for, no matter how long it takes to do so.”

DPAA deputy director Rear Admiral Jon Kreitz said he saw the remains transfer as an important step that will lead to more recovery operations in North Korea.

DIPLOMATIC GESTURE

The pledge to transfer war remains was seen as a goodwill gesture by Kim at the Singapore summit and was the most concrete agreement reached by the two sides so far.

While it has taken longer than some had hoped, a U.S. State Department official said the process had so far proceeded as expected, and the handover rekindled hopes for progress in other talks with North Korea aimed at its denuclearization.

Friday’s transfer of the remains coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting between North Korean and Chinese forces and South Korean and U.S.-led forces under the U.N. Command. The two sides remain technically at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 15 that Washington and Pyongyang had agreed to recommence field operations in North Korea to search for the missing Americans.

The Pentagon said it was “absolutely” considering the possibility of sending personnel to North Korea for this purpose.

The United States and North Korea conducted joint searches from 1996 until 2005, when Washington halted the operations, citing concerns about the safety of its personnel as Pyongyang stepped up its nuclear program.

More than 400 caskets of remains found in North Korea were returned to the United States between the 1990s and 2005, with the bodies of some 330 other Americans also accounted for, according to the DPAA.

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it expects Pyongyang to keep its commitment made at the June summit to give up its nuclear arms which it had developed for years in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Questions have arisen over Pyongyang’s commitment to denuclearize after U.S. spy satellite material detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Trump thanks Kim as North Korea transfers remains of missing U.S. soldiers

A soldier carries a casket containing the remains of a U.S. soldier who was killed in the Korean War during a ceremony at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, July 27, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/Pool

By Joyce Lee and Eric Beech

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea transferred 55 small, flag-draped cases carrying the suspected remains of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War on Friday, officials said, a first step in implementing an agreement reached in a landmark summit in June.

The repatriation of the remains missing in the 1950-53 conflict is seen as a modest diplomatic coup for U.S. President Donald Trump as it was one of the agreements reached during his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore aimed primarily at securing the denuclearization of the North.

“After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jong Un,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

A White House statement earlier said: “We are encouraged by North Korea’s actions and the momentum for positive change.”

A U.S. military transport plane flew to an airfield in North Korea’s northeastern city of Wonsan to bring the remains to Osan air base in South Korea, the White House statement said.

Soldiers in dress uniforms with white gloves were seen slowly carrying 55 small cases covered with the blue-and-white U.N. insignia, placing them one by one into silver vans waiting on the tarmac in Osan.

A U.N. honor guard carries a box containing remains believed to be from American servicemen killed during the 1950-53 Korean War after it arrived from North Korea, at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Friday, July 27, 2018. Ahn Young-joon/Pool via Reuters

Straight-backed officers looked on next to the flags of the United States, South Korea and the United Nations.

A formal repatriation ceremony would be held at Osan on Wednesday, the White House said.

The remains would then be flown to Hawaii for further processing under the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the U.N. Command said in a statement.

The transfer of the remains coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting between North Korean and Chinese forces on one side and South Korean and U.S.-led forces under the U.N. Command on the other. The two Koreas are technically still at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

Kim paid tribute to the North’s Korean War “martyrs” and to Chinese soldiers killed in the conflict, state media said.

More than 7,700 U.S. troops who fought in the Korean War remain unaccounted for, with about 5,300 of those lost in what is now North Korea.

U.S. soldiers salute to vehicles transporting the remains of 55 U.S. soldiers who were killed in the Korean War at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, July 27, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/Pool

GOODWILL GESTURE

The pledge to transfer war remains was seen as a goodwill gesture by Kim at the June summit and, while it has taken longer than some U.S. officials had hoped, the handover will rekindle hopes for progress in nuclear talks.

Kim committed in a broad summit statement to work toward denuclearization but Pyongyang has offered no details.

South Korea welcomed the return of the remains, calling it “meaningful progress that could contribute to fostering trust” between Pyongyang and Washington.

The two Koreas agreed to hold general-level military talks on Tuesday to discuss ways to implement their own summit in April in which they vowed to defuse tensions, Seoul’s defense ministry said on Friday.

South Korea also said it plans to cut the number of troops from 618,000 to 500,000 by 2020 and the number of generals from 436 to 360 as part of military reforms.

The plan comes amid a thaw in relations between the two Koreas and days after the South pledged to reduce guard posts and equipment along the demilitarized zone on its border with the North.

It would spend 270.7 trillion won ($241.8 billion) on the reforms from 2019-23, which translates into a 7.5 percent rise in its annual defense budget, the ministry said in a statement.

Pyongyang has renewed calls for a declaration of the end of the Korean War, calling it the “first process for peace” and an important way Washington can add heft to security guarantees it has pledged in return for North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons.

The U.S. State Department says Washington is committed to building a peace mechanism to replace the armistice when North Korea has denuclearised.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Senate hearing on Wednesday North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs despite of its pledge to denuclearize, even as he argued that the United States was making progress in talks with Pyongyang.

Pompeo said North Korea had begun to dismantle a missile test site, something Kim also promised in Singapore, and called it “a good thing, steps forward”. However, he said Kim needed to follow through on his summit commitments to denuclearize.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, banning luxury goods said to include recreational sports equipment.

The United States has blocked a request by the International Olympic Committee to transfer sports equipment to North Korea so its athletes can participate in the Olympic Games, United Nations diplomats said on Thursday.

Before Friday’s transfer of remains, the United States and North Korea had worked on so-called joint field activities to recover Korean War remains from 1996-2005. Washington halted those operations, citing concerns about the safety of its personnel as Pyongyang stepped up its nuclear program.

Pentagon officials have said discussions with North Korea have included resuming field operations in the North to recover remains.

The program helped bring in vital hard currency to North Korea, which has been under U.S.-led sanctions for decades. However, reviving it could complicate U.S. efforts to persuade countries around the world to maintain economic pressure on Pyongyang over its ballistic and nuclear programs.

(Reporting by Eric Beech and David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON and Joyce Lee in SEOUL; Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin in SEOUL; Editing by Mohammad Zargham, Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

Recovery of U.S. troops’ remains in North Korea hindered by cash, politics

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un leave after signing documents that acknowledge the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Joyce Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) – When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed in June to help return the remains of American troops killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, it was seen as one of the more attainable goals to come out of his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

American officials expect North Korea to hand over around 50 sets of remains in coming weeks, but the drawn-out process of negotiations to get to this point highlights the complications involved in the issue.

At the heart of the difficulty, former officials involved in previous recovery missions say, are likely demands from North Korea for cash compensation, as well as the unsolved tensions over North’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile arsenal.

More than 7,700 U.S. troops who fought in the Korean War remain unaccounted for, with about 5,300 of those lost in what is now North Korea, according to the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), the U.S. military agency tasked with tracking down prisoners of war and troops missing in action.

The Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the United States and North Korea still technically at war.

Soon after the June summit, Trump announced North Korea had returned the remains of 200 soldiers that had already been found. However, negotiations over the actual handing over of the remains have dragged on.

“The North Koreans are using the remains issue as a bargaining chip,” said Bill Richardson, a former U.S. diplomat with experience negotiating with North Korea, including during the recovery of the remains of seven Americans in 2007.

“They’re stalling,” he told Reuters in an interview by phone. “I think in the end the North Koreans will turn over the majority of the remains that they have – but it will have a price. Not just a financial price.”

REMAINS RETURNED

Between the 1990 and 2005, more than 400 caskets of remains found in North Korea were returned to the United States, and the bodies of some 330 Americans were accounted for, according to the DPAA.

Decades-old remains that North Korea has handed over in the past have not always been identifiable as U.S. troops.

The U.S. and North Korea worked together on so-called joint field activities (JFAs) to recover remains from 1996-2005 until Washington halted operations expressing concerns about the safety of its personnel.

A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report said the United States paid $28 million to North Korea for assistance in the effort.

“To the best of my knowledge, it was never based on a per body calculation. Payments were made in support of each field mission – each joint recovery operation,” said Frank Jannuzi, a former Democratic Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer focusing on East Asian and Pacific affairs. Payments were to compensate North Korea for direct expenses incurred such as fuel costs, disruption of agricultural planting, or equipment costs, he said.

In 2011, Barack Obama’s administration agreed with Pyongyang to restart recovery missions, offering to pay $5,669,160 in “compensation” for services provided by North Korea.

Those planned missions never happened, however, as Washington called off the deal after North Korea tested a rocket in early 2012, said Paul M. Cole, author of ‘POW/MIA Accounting’.

“If the past is any indicator, the (North Koreans) are demanding up-front deliveries of food, fuel and at least $5 million in cash,” Cole told Reuters. “In the era of ‘maximum pressure,’ the dilemma for the Trump administration is whether to give the (North Koreans) massive amounts of food, fuel, trucks, SUVs and millions in cash, or cancel the deal.”

Former officials say typically North Korea has not asked for compensation when it unilaterally returns remains it recovers, such as the roughly 200 currently being discussed.

But if the United States hopes to send its own teams into North Korea, there will likely be a cost.

Asked whether the cost of future joint field activities would be similar to what was paid in the past, the Pentagon’s DPAA Public Affairs Office said: “As of yet, there are no JFAs scheduled in North Korea so we cannot speculate on what such activities may cost.”

The U.S. State Department did not have an immediate comment on the negotiations, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on June North Korea had made a commitment to unilateral return the first remains “in the next couple weeks”.

According to CRS, the United States also paid for recovery operations in Vietnam. As with North Korea, critics complained the Vietnamese government charged “extraordinarily high fees for providing support… and that the services received are by no means as lavish as the bills presented indicate”.

South Korea’s former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-han said Pyongyang would likely want to use the return of remains to improve its relations with Washington while avoiding addressing more touchy subjects such as denuclearization.

“North Korea wants the war declared ended sooner rather than later so trust can be built and progress on its international standing can be made,” he said, adding that any “reimbursements” were likely to violate sanctions.

Besides being politically sensitive, however, handing the North Korean government stacks of cash offers no guarantee that authenticated U.S. servicemen’s remains would be recovered, Jannuzi said.

“We might spend a million dollars and come up with nothing.”

(Additional reporting by Jeongmin Kim and Josh Smith in SEOUL, Arshad Mohammed and Daphne Psaledakis in WASHINGTON; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

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