News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: U.S., N. Koreans meet to discuss recovery of Korean War MIAs' remains

Date: February 16, 2002

"Sunday, January 27, 2002 - Stars & Stripes
U.S., N. Koreans meet to discuss recovery of Korean War MIAs' remains
By Jim Lea, Osan bureau chief - Pacific edition, Sunday, January 27, 2002

U.S. and North Korean officials are meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, to plan this year’s joint search-and-recovery operations for the remains of U.S. troops listed as missing in North Korea in the Korean War.

"Details of the operations are being negotiated now," Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon’s POW/Missing Persons Office, said in an e-mail.

The talks were opened by Jerry D. Jennings, director of DPMO, as the Pentagon office is commonly known.

Senior Col. Pak Rim Su is heading the North Korean army delegation.

Joint search-and-recovery operations conducted by the United States and North Korea began in 1996.

So far, 27 searches have been conducted, with 152 sets of remains believed to be those of U.S. troops being recovered.

Ten of those remains positively have been identified by the Army’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Twelve more sets of remains are in the final stages of identification, DPMO officials say.

Last year, 10 recovery operations were held.

Operations have centered primarily in the Unsan County area, about 65 miles north of Pyongyang and not far from the Chinese border.

Members of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division were attacked there by Chinese troops in late 1950.

Last year, North Korea allowed the first search-and-recovery operation near the Chosin Reservoir.

More than 1,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers are believed to have been killed by Chinese troops or died in the bitter cold there as they withdrew south in late 1950.

Although there has been no dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang since President Bush entered office, DPMO head Jennings said in an interview in Seoul in December that he didn’t expect that to impact on the MIA search in the North "because it’s a humanitarian operation."

About 8,100 American troops still are listed as missing from the Korean War."