News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: American Defectors Sought

Date: December 20, 2000

"U.S. Seeks Access to Army Defectors
By ROBERT BURNS .c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Pentagon officials have renewed a request to North Korea for access to four Americans who deserted the U.S. Army in South Korea during the 1960s and are living in the communist North.

The request was made during talks last week in Malaysia between U.S. and North Korean officials negotiating an agreement on access to former Korean War battlefields where the Pentagon hopes to recover soldiers' remains.

Access to the four Americans - whose presence in North Korea was made public in the United Stats nearly five years ago - was raised as a separate issue and was not resolved, Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's POW/MIA office, said Wednesday. They are the only four Americans known to be living in North Korea.

``We made it a matter of record that we intend to continue to pursue it,'' Greer said.

North Korea has denied previous U.S. requests for access to the Americans, who are considered defectors. They said previously that the four are North Korean citizens now and don't want to talk to U.S. officials.

``Interestingly, they didn't reject it this time,'' Greer said. The North Koreans just left it an open matter.

Greer's office is interested in interviewing the four to determine whether they know of other Americans living in North Korea. The Pentagon has received numerous reports in recent years of 10 to 15 other Americans in North Korea who were taken prisoner during the Korean War and may remain there against their will. Those reports have not be corroborated. North Korea denies it.

The four Americans who defected from U.S. Army posts in South Korea in the 1960s are Pvt. Larry A. Abshier of Urbana, Ill., who left his unit in May 1962 at age 19; Cpl. Jerry W. Parrish of Morganfield, Ky., who deserted in December 1963 at age 19; Pvt. James Dresnok of Norfolk, Va., who left in August 1962 at age 21, and Sgt. Robert Jenkins of Rich Square, N.C., who deserted in January 1965 at age 25.

The Pentagon first confirmed that the four were alive and living in North Korea in January 1996."