North Korea stalls on its promise to return US remains as stalemate over disarmament deepens
- The remains of thousands of US service members were left behind when the Korean war ended in 1953
- In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un committed to ‘work toward’ the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula
Months after the White House raised hopes for bringing home thousands of US battlefield remains from North Korea, the returns have stalled. Detailed negotiations on future recovery arrangements have not even begun.
The slower pace appears linked to the more talked-about stalemate over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
At a June meeting with President Donald Trump, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un committed to “work toward” the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and to cooperate in recovering US war remains. Neither issue is said to be explicitly dependent on the other, and in August, the North turned over 55 boxes of remains, with expectations of more to come soon. But progress then slowed, as has the nuclear diplomacy.
Trump has said he likely will have a second summit with Kim in January or February, and while the nuclear issue would be the central focus, some believe a second meeting is the best chance to restore momentum to the remains recovery effort.
“It is easy to wonder if that isn’t what everyone is waiting on to happen,” said Richard Downes, executive director of the Coalition of Families of Korean war and cold war POW/MIAs, which advocates for a full accounting of the missing.
The remains of thousands of US service members were left behind in North Korea when the war ended in 1953, with the North and South separated by a demilitarised zone and no formal end to the conflict. Joint US-North Korean recovery operations started in 1996 and were halted in 2005 amid rising worries about the North’s nuclear ambitions. More than 150 individuals have been identified from the remains that were jointly excavated and returned through 2005; those are separate from the remains in the 55 boxes, which had been stored by the North, probably for decades.
Of the remains repatriated in August in the 55 boxes, two have been positively identified. They are Army Master Sgt. Charles H. McDaniel, of Butler, Missouri, and Vernon, Indiana, and Army Pfc. William H. Jones, of Nash County, North Carolina.
