News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: NK Searches Expanded

Date: December 18, 2000

"U.S., North Korea Agree on Expanded MIA Searches
By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and North Korean negotiators agreed to expand joint searches next year for the remains of hundreds of American troops still missing in action since the Korean War, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Monday.

It will be the sixth straight year of such recovery operations in communist North Korea (news - web sites), and U.S. defense officials said the expanded operations are a sign of growing cooperation between Washington and the hard-line Pyongyang government.

The agreement follows four days of negotiations in Kuala Lumpur last week and ``significantly expands the size of the U.S. teams, increases the length of U.S. activities and adds areas of operations around the Chosin Reservoir,'' the Pentagon said.

Five joint recovery operations this year found 65 sets of suspected U.S. remains, which were sent back to the United States for identification. Forty-two sets were found between 1996 to 1999.

More than 8,100 U.S. troops are still missing in action from the Korean War, fought between 1950 and 1953.

Ten recovery operations will be conducted in 2001 between April and November around the Chosin Reservoir and in two current search areas in Unsan and Kujang counties approximately 60 miles 96 km north of Pyongyang.

More than 950 missing U.S. soldiers are believed to be located in the three search areas.

The increase in the number of search days next year totals 60 more than in the 2000 schedule and the U.S. component of the joint teams will be expanded to 28 members from the current 20.

In 2001, operations will include areas of investigation near Kaechon, about 18 miles 28 km south of Unsan and Kujang. Kaechon includes an area nicknamed ``the Gauntlet'', where the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division conducted a fighting withdrawal along a narrow road through 6 miles 9.6 km of Chinese military ambush positions during November and December 1950.

The Chosin Reservoir campaign alone left approximately 750 U.S. Marines and Army soldiers missing in action on both the east and west sides of the reservoir in northeastern North Korea. "