Return of possible remains marks 1st step in Korea diplomacy

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday for "fulfilling a promise" to return the remains of US soldiers missing from the Korean War, a US military plane made a rare trip to North Korea to retrieve 55 cases said to contain remains.

Close to 7,700 US soldiers remain unaccounted for from the 1950-53 Korean War, and about 5,300 of those were lost in North Korea.

North Korea's move to a positive step in Trump's diplomacy

Defense Secretary Matt Mattis, Secretary of the Defense of the United States of America. denuclearization of North Korea. But he said it was a step in the right direction following the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.

"This is obviously a gesture of carrying forward what we agreed to do in Singapore," Mattis told reporters Friday . "We also look at the first step of a restarted process. So, despite the fact that we are trying to explore additional efforts to bring back home. "

In spite of the rhetoric about denuclearization before the Singapore meeting, the summit ended with a vague aspirational goal for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

Subsequent talks between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean officials with a North American accusing the Americans of making "unilateral and gangster-like" demands on denuclearization. On Wednesday, Pompeo said a great deal of work remains ahead of a North Korea denuclearization deal, but it declined to provide any timeline.

Trump, addressing reporters on the South Lawn, said Vice President Mike Pence would be greet the families and the remains of the soldiers.

"We have many others coming, but I want to thank Chairman Kim in the forefront of the media for fulfilling the future, and I'm sure Trump said.

"These incredible American heroes will soon lay at rest on American soil," he added.

Pence, the sound of a Korean War veteran fight, said in a statement that he will participate in the ceremony when the remains arrives in the US United Nations Command said he would be flown to Hawaii immediately after a full honors ceremony in Seoul on Wednesday.

"It is deeply humbling to be part of this historic moment, "Pence said. "We will never forget the sacrifices these brave service members and their families made for our nation and our freedoms."

Early Friday morning in Korea, a US Air Force C-17 plane transport made a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 boxes of what are believed to be remains from the Korean War. The aircraft then flew from Wonsan to Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, near the South Korean capital of Seoul.

At the air base, US servicemen and a military honor guarded to the tarmac boxes covered in blue UN flags. Officials in North Korea had no comment on the handover, which came on the end of the Korean War.

Once the cases arrive in Hawaii, a series of forensic examinations will be made

Mattis underscored that looming question, saying "we do not know who's in those boxes." But he said the gesture is important for families of the fallen,

"We have families that they got the telegram, have never had closure," Mattis said. "

More than 36,000 US troops died in the conflict."

The repatriation of North Korean demands for fast-tracked discussions to formally end the war, which was stopped with an armistice and not a peace treaty. South Korea's Defense Ministry also said that the United States would be able to negotiate with the United States.

The remains are believed to be some of the more than 200 that North Korea has held in storage for some time, and was likely to recover from land during farming or construction. The vast majority of the war dead, however, to be located and retrieved from cemeteries and battlefields across the countryside.

Efforts to recover North Korea's nuclear warriors North American military search teams conducted 269 sets of American remains. The last time North Korea turned over in 2007, when Bill Richardson, to form an ambbadador and New Mexico governor, secured the return of six sets.

Washington has said Pyongyang would not get sanctions relief and significant security and economic rewards unless it is firmly committed to a process of completely and verifiably eliminating its nuclear weapons. There are some doubts about whether or not they would agree to fully relinquish their nukes, which he could see to a stronger guarantee of survival than any security badurance.

Ahn reported from Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Kim reported from Seoul and Baldor from Washington. AP journalist Eric Talmadge in Pyongyang, North Korea, Kim Yong-ho in Pyeongtaek, Foster Klug in Seoul, and Ken Thomas and Sagar Meghani in Washington Contributed by: