Yesterday (February 3rd) , DPMO held a briefing for family and veterans groups to update us all on the strategy DPMO will take in responding to North Korea's recent claim that they have discovered 415 sets of American remains in the Unsan area, and are prepared to repatriate them. As the Coalition posted earlier, DPMO's information from the North Koreans is that only 2 sets of remains have actually been discovered and excavated by North Korean workers. The other 413 make up an estimated number of remains that both North Korean and American officials believe should be located somewhere in the Unsan area, given the fierce battles and heavy casualties that took place in the area in November and December of 1950.
Alan Liotta, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
POW/MIA matters, reports that he will send a letter through the North Korean
Mission at the United Nations to Colonel Pak, the North Korean official with
whom he most often deals. The letter
will propose the following:
1) That U.S. and N.K. officials meet in New
York as soon as possible (this month or early in March) to resume talks
intended to schedule joint remains recovery operations for the year 2000. Earlier talks in Berlin broke down when the
North Koreans asked for millions of dollars worth of humanitarian aid in
exchange for remains recovery efforts.
2) Upon reaching an agreement, the first step
of the plan would call for the U.S. to send a small forensics team to the Unsan
site, and assess the remains that have been unearthed. This team would bring any remains that have
been unearthed home with them upon their return. Again, it is believed that we are talking about one or two sets
of remains at this time.
The team would also assess the viability of the Unsan
site, and make a determination of whether it would be advisable to mount a
larger scale operation in this particular area. If so, this would be the location of the next one or several
joint operations, depending on the number of remains that they believe can be
recovered there.
3) The U.S. would also send an investigative
team into N.K. which would visit other sites believed to contain large numbers
of remains, such as the Chosin Reservoir and areas where POW camps were
maintained. This would be with an eye
to readying excavation teams to go into these areas in the event that the Unsan
area stopped being a productive recovery site.
Alan Liotta says he hopes for a response from the North
Koreans as soon as next week, so that, if the North Koreans accept the proposal
to resume talks, the negotiations can get underway shortly, leaving a full
season for recovery efforts in country.
This, of course, assumes that negotiators are able to reach an
agreement. We are told that the North
Koreans must be willing to de-link remains recovery from unrelated aid or
political matters, or the talks will once again go nowhere.
Mr. Liotta has promised to keep families and vets
informed as he hears back from the North Koreans. We will pass the information along, and keep you all updated.