[ad_1]
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea – A US Air Force aircraft carrying what appears to be the remains of 55 Americans killed during the Korean War arrived at the Air Force Base. Osan South Korea Friday morning, the 65th anniversary of the armistice that ended the fighting.
The US Air Force C-17 aircraft took off for Kalma Airport in the North Korean city of Wonsan before 6 pm Friday. He returned around 11 am local time, where he was greeted by a crowd of several thousand US servicemen and their families – all US servicemen in South Korea had been invited to the event.
The exchange means that part of the agreement reached between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 was partially respected – albeit more slowly than planned.
"Today's actions represent an important first step towards repatriating the remains of North Korea and resuming field operations in North Korea to search for some 5,300 Americans who are not not yet gone home, "White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement on Thursday night
. A few days for the first tests before a repatriation ceremony takes place on August 1st and they are sent to Hawaii.
The Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday that the North K Orea has accepted 100 wooden transport boxes that it plans to use to return the remains. The US military command in South Korea moved the coffins into the demilitarized zone that separates the Korean peninsula in late June.
On Thursday, the expected recovery was met with cautious optimism by Rick Downes, executive director of a group of families including those who have never returned from the Korean War. They have been watching discussions in recent weeks with a mix of hope and cynicism, he says.
"These are poker chips, unfortunately," says Downes, who heads the Coalition of Families of Prisoners of War and War. "These guys, these missing men, are still serving, the war is still going on, and they are being negotiated and used as a bargaining tool."
[For the U.S., a frustrating history of recovering human remains in North Korea]
A US official told The Washington Post last week that North Korea has accepted to hand over about 55 sets of remains. Friday was suggested as a probable date for repatriation because of its symbolic significance as the anniversary of the armistice, but the official warned that the date could change and that the number of leftovers should be checked after that they are handed over. Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who has repeatedly worked on repatriation issues and visited North Korea, said Thursday that he considered potential recovery a positive first step. . But he warned that Pyongyang could save time by delivering other leftovers and trying to use the issue as a way to make money.
"They will give a certain amount of leftovers for free immediately," predicts Richardson. "But then they will say, 'The next ones, we have to find them, locate them, restore them.' And then they'll start charging, and they'll milk that."
Although the United States has In the past, it has agreed to fund some costs incurred by North Koreans.
The Pentagon estimates that nearly 7,700 American soldiers are missing from the war; Of these, 5,300 were reportedly killed north of the 38th parallel, which largely coincides with the border between North Korea and South Korea.
The North Korean government is said to have between 120 and 200 sets of US military remains. There are still thousands in the North Korean countryside, said Mickey Bergman, vice president of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement that the former governor founded.
Some remains were buried by US troops in cemeteries were intended to be temporary until China's entry into the Korean War forces US forces to withdraw further south . Other remains are on sites where planes crashed or in unmarked graves, said Bergman.
"One of the important things is that the American people understand that it is only the beginning". "It's going to take years, we're going to need interviews and eye surveys and teams on the ground, and I'm afraid we're getting those leftovers and we're saying" Mission accomplished! " This is not the case. "
After the return of the remains, scientific tests will be needed to confirm that they belong to the American soldiers of the Korean War In the past, North Korea has been accused of Deliberately include non-American bones – even animal bones – in an attempt to deceive the US authorities.
The remains will be sent to Hawaii, where the POW / MIA Defense Agency Accounting runs a laboratory at the Pearl Harbor-Hickam joint base.The process of identification could take years, said the US authorities.It often includes a review of archival information that determines where certain troops have gone. probably disappeared or were buried.
After the historic summit between the two leaders last month, Trump and Kim agreed to work together to recover US remains in North Korea and to implement the "immediate repatriation of those already identified." [19659019] Only a few days after meeting Kim, Trump portrayed the return of the remains as something that had already happened. "We recovered our great fallen heroes, leftovers," he said at a rally. campaign in Minnesota. "In fact, today, 200 people have already been fired."
However, while the US military had moved coffins into the Korean Peninsula Common Security Zone by anticipation, no remnants had been sent in. Soon the negotiations dragged on longer than expected.
"The fact that it took so long to get such fruits is a bad thing. s sign that North Korea intends to rely on its traditional bargaining position "A Pentagon official who teaches at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, said about potential repatriation. US Attorney General Mike Pompeo was scheduled to visit Pyongyang for an overnight stay on July 6. But his team was criticized by the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so his visit only highlighted tensions between the United States and North Korea. on the return of the remains and the issues surrounding denuclearization.
On July 12, the North Korean military authorities allowed their American counterparts to wait for hours in the common security zone before telephoning late to ask them to postpone their pre-arranged meeting. It is only after this meeting and the following that practical progress has been made.
The last time the North Korean military surrendered remnants of US troops, it was in 2005, in a context of escalating tensions with Pyongyang, when the United States quit a program which had been going on since the 1990s.
In 2007, Richardson visited North Korea as part of a private mission approved by the Bush administration. Richardson returned with the remains of six members of the service
The return of the remains would come now after commercial satellite imagery had shown that North Korea had destroyed part of a satellite test facility that was making part of the missile development program. Trump, who told reporters in June that North Korea had agreed to destroy the facility, said on Tuesday that the United States appreciated the move.
Lamothe reported from Washington.
Read more:
U.S. According to official sources, war dead from North Korea wait 2 weeks
Coverage of post-correspondents from around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay up-to-date on foreign news [19659031] window.addEventListener ("DOMContentLoaded", function () {});
window.addEventListener ("load", function () {var isEUUser = wp_pb.StaticMethods.isEUUser () || false, applyTwitter () function {try {var $ tweetAuthors = $ (". tweet-authors"); var $ tweetTimelines = $ (". twitter-timeline"); if (($ $ tweetAuthors.length || !! $ tweetTimelines.length) && (! window.twttr ||! twttr.widgets)) $. ajax ({dataType: " script ", cache: true, url:" // platform.twitter.com/widgets.js",success:function(data){if(!!$tweetAuthors.length)$tweetAuthors.find(".pb-twitter – follow.unprocessed "). removeClass (" untreated ")}})} catch (e) {}} if (wp_pb.StaticMethods.isPageHydrated ()) applyTwitter ();
__e = window .__ e || []; __ e.push ([“shamble:end”,function(){applyTwitter()}]); wp_import (pbThirdPartyScripts) .always (function () {document.dispatchEvent (new CustomEvent ("pb-r-third-party-js"))}}); if (! isEUUser) try {$ ("body"). append ( x3cimg src x3d "https://amplifypixel.outbrain.com/pixel?midx3d00bb70a80ee8f020d9011cbcef307fe64d" x3e ")} catch (e) {} if (! isEUUser) {! function (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {if (f.fbq) returns; n = f.fbq = function () {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply (n, arguments): n.queue. push (arguments);; if (! f._fbq) f._fbq = n; n.push =
not; load = 0, n.version = "2.0"; n.queue = []; t = b.createElement (e); t.async =! 0; t.src = v; s = b .getElementsByTagName (e) [0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore (t, s)} (window, document, "script", "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js"); fbq ("init", "1063176057035408"); fbq ("track", "PageView")}});
[ad_2]
Source link
