US military in South Korea expect to receive remains of unknown number of missing US or allied service members

US forces in South Korea are preparing for the North Koreans to turn over the remains of an unknown number of US or allied service members who have been missing since the Korean war, US officials have said.

Pentagon cancels Freedom Guardian military drill with South Korea Read more

The officials said the timing of a ceremony remained uncertain, but could be soon. The officials were not authorised to discuss the preparations before an official announcement, and requested anonymity.

More than 36,000 US troops died in the conflict, including those listed as missing in action. Close to 7,700 US troops remain unaccounted for from the Korean war, and about 5,300 of those were lost in North Korea.

North Korea is known to have had the remains of more than 200 American service members for some time. But the precise number and the identities, including whether they are US or allied service members, won’t be known until the remains are tested.

The defense and state departments and White House declined to discuss the issue and the Pentagon said only that an interagency effort was underway and that Donald Trump’s agreement with North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un during last week’s summit cleared the way for the planning for the return of remains.

Trump raised the likelihood of the repatriation of remains in the wake of his summit last week with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Kim undertook to cooperate with the US in the recovery, a longstanding US request that has so far produced only limited assistance. At the time Trump said: “We’re getting the remains, and nobody thought that was possible.”

In a sign of warming ties with the regime, the Pentagon said on Tuesday the US and South Korea had cancelled a major military exercise scheduled for August, a week after Trump said he would end the “war games” in a surprise concession during his summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

The Pentagon said Operation Ulchi Freedom Guardian would not take place, while Washington and Pyongyang continued to discuss denuclearisation following Trump’s historic meeting with Kim in Singapore last Tuesday.

The transfer of remains is usually done in a somber, formal ceremony, and that is what officials said was being planned. It is not clear where the ceremony would take place.

Richard Downes, executive director of the Coalition of Families of Korean & Cold War POW/MIAs, said the remains of more than 200 American service members were probably recovered from land during farming or construction and could be easily returned. But he said the vast majority had yet to be located and retrieved from various cemeteries and battlefields across the countryside.

Between 1996 and 2005, joint US-North Korea military search teams conducted 33 recovery operations and recovered 229 sets of American remains. Washington officially broke off the program because it claimed the safety of its searchers was not guaranteed, though the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006, was likely a bigger reason.

The last time North Korea turned over remains was in 2007, when Bill Richardson, a former UN ambassador and New Mexico governor, secured the return of six sets.

According to Chuck Prichard, a spokesman for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, once the remains were turned over, they would be sent to one of two defense department facilities – joint base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii or Offutt air force base in Nebraska – for tests to determine identification.