News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: North Korea Recovery Urged

Date: November 18, 2000

"Monday, November 13, 2000
N. Korea urged to allow search for remains at Chosin Reservoir
By Jim Lea Osan bureau chief

SEOUL — The Pentagon is pressing North Korea to allow search-and-recovery operations for the remains of U.S. troops killed at Chosin Reservoir, a senior U.S. official says.

But such operations will be difficult because many remains are underwater, said J. Alan Liotta, deputy director of the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Persons office.

U.S. and North Korean teams have been conducting joint search-and-recovery operations in Unsan County in western North Korea since 1996. So far, 107 sets of remains have been repatriated to the United States, and five have been positively identified.

Liotta has been pressing the North to allow operations at Chosin Reservoir — in the northeast — since the project began. Pyongyang has refused. But during a trip to the North in October, Liotta was able to look at the area with some recovery team members.

"There still are about 1,000 Americans unaccounted for there," he said in an interview in October. "The difficulty lies in the fact that about a third of them fell through the ice, and their remains are at the bottom of the reservoir. That means we’ll have to make underwater recoveries."

He added, however, that officials at the Army’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii have developed techniques and expertise in such recoveries.

He said operations at the Chosin would "be difficult, but not insurmountable."

Liotta said beginning recovery operations at the reservoir "will be on the table" when Pentagon and North Korean army officials meet in December to plan next year’s operations.

If such an operation is held, he said, "it will be expensive. But if we can bring back remains of those missing, the cost doesn’t matter."