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North Korea could allow the United States to find thousands of American soldiers who died in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953, but months could go by before bone fragments could are identified. .
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"That takes a few months cases, years, before we can do an identification, "Kelly McKeague, head of the US agency that tracks down the remains of US soldiers lost on foreign battlefields, said in an interview.
Thirteen years after his last job in North Korea, the agency could return after leader Kim Jong Un agreed at a June 12 summit with President Donald Trump to resume recovery and the repatriation of American remains.
After the summit, Trump said that Pyongyang had already "returned" the remains of 200 US soldiers. McKeague said no new homes have been returned since the Trump-Kim talks.
"We have not yet seen the details of this commitment," said McKeague, director of the US POW / MIA Defense Agency (DPAA).
The process could have a boost when North Korean and UN officials meet on Thursday in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the Koreas to discuss missing combatants (MIA). The advisers of the DPAA will attend the discussions.
"We hope that these discussions on July 12 will lead to further discussions and direct negotiations with North Koreans, which will allow us to arrive at detailed planning," McKeague said.
DPAA investigators face a narrow weather window in North Korea, where the soil is loose enough to dig from mid-March to the end of September, and rains can stop working in June and early September. August.
The last return of American remains between 1990 and 1995 involved just over 200 coffins. US investigators collected another 230 boxes of bone and equipment in a decade of excavations.
Using DNA tests, they identified 630 individuals, 330 of whom were matched to missing service members, said Dr. John Byrd, director of scientific badysis of the 39, ;agency.
Each person receives military funeral with all the honors.
Working in the North
Byrd, a forensic anthropologist, was part of a 15-person DPAA team in North Korea 20 years ago. They lived in tents and went to battle sites like the Chosin Reservoir, where many US Navy and Army units led a retreat by overwhelming numbers of Chinese forces in a harsh winter .
Kept by North Korean soldiers, Byrd says that they were careful to avoid arguments that might stop their work.
"We made sure to bring in only experienced and very mature people," he said, adding that every day "will be negotiated".
The remains of a South Korean military identified during this operation will be returned Friday in Seoul. About 350,000 South Koreans are still missing.
Some 7,700 Americans are missing on the peninsula, of whom 5,300 are believed to be north of the demilitarized zone.
Detailed historical records allow investigators to locate battlefields, POW camps, and crash sites.
The colder climate of the Korean Peninsula limits digging time, but helps preserve the remains, unlike the tropical regions of Asia, where bones rot quickly, McKeague said.
The agency set up a DNA database of parents covering 92% of the missing Korean War, compared to 85% for the Vietnam War and 3% for the Second World War.
The lack of economic development in the North since the end of the war by a truce, not a peace treaty, meant that it was building fewer roads, dams and buildings to disturb or cover the remains.
The urbanization of South Korea is one of the reasons why more than 1,000 US service members are missing, said McKeague.
If the agency returns to North Korea, he said that cooperation would be the key. "The most difficult thing about working with North Koreans was trust," he said.
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