The 55 boxes given to the US by North Korea last week appear to contain the remains of Americans killed during the Korean War according to an initial forensic analysis, a government official confirmed Wednesday.

US military aircraft on Friday flew the remains from the North Korean city of Wonsan to the South, a first step fulfilling the agreement reached at the summit between Kim Jong Un and President Trump in June.

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

More than 7,700 US troops remain unaccounted for from the 1950-1953 Korea War, including about 5,300 were lost in what is now North Korea.

Byrd said a single dog tag was also handed over by the North Koreans.

That soldier’s family had been notified, though it was not clear if his remains were among those found, he said.

Experts said positively identifying the decades-old remains could take anywhere from days to decades — and that some of them might not even be human.

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

The North Koreans provided enough details about where each suspected body was found that American officials have matched them to specific battles, he said.

Dozens of American, South Korean and other soldiers and officials from UN countries that fought in the Korean War conducted a solemn ceremony with full military honors before the remains were flown to Hawaii on Wednesday.

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

Officials from UN-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 General Vincent Brooks, top commander of US and UN 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.”

In Hawaii, Vice President Pence was set to attend a ceremony later Wednesday welcoming the deceased veterans return to US soil.

He was going to be joined by a woman whose father was killed in the fighting, though it was unclear if he would eventually be identified as one of the deceased transferred to the US.

While it has taken longer than some had hoped, a 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 coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting between North Korean and Chinese forces and South Korean and US-led forces under the UN Command.

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

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 US 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 States between the 1990s and 2005, with the bodies of some 330 other Americans also accounted for.

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

But the White House on Tuesday downplayed the development, saying that Trump’s post-summit tweet that the nuclear threat from the North was over was still operative.

With Reuters