NKorea threatens to stop returning US war remains

[April 20, 2010]  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea accused the United States on Monday of ignoring its efforts to return remains of American soldiers who were killed in the Korean War in the 1950s and threatened to stop collecting and returning the bodies.

The North's military said it informed the U.S. twice this year of "a number of" remains of U.S. troops found during land realignment and farming preparations in 10 different locations. But the U.S. Defense Department has not offered a concrete response and asked the North to wait, it said.

"Though lots of U.S. remains are being dug out and scattered here and there in our country, our side will no longer be concerned about it," said a military statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The Korean War ended in a 1953 cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty -- leaving the Korean peninsula technically still at war. About 8,000 U.S. servicemen are listed as missing from the conflict.

The U.S. and North Korea had previously been involved in a joint project to recover remains in the North, but the effort was halted in 2005 after Washington said security arrangements for its personnel were insufficient.

In late January, a Pentagon official said North Korea offered to consider allowing the U.S. back into the country to resume searching for remains.

Larry Greer, a spokesman for the POW-MIA office at the Pentagon, said at the time that the U.S. would weigh the offer. But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. was more interested in getting the North to rejoin international disarmament talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program.

The North's statement Monday accused the U.S. of pushing to resolve even humanitarian issues like the return of war remains within the framework of six-nation nuclear talks Pyongyang quit last year.

"If thousands of U.S. remains buried in our country are washed off and lost due to the U.S. side's disregard, the U.S. side should be wholly responsible for the consequences as it has developed the humanitarian issue into a political problem," it said.

The statement said North Korea handed over the remains of 229 American soldiers to the U.S. through 33 joint projects. It said remains include those of a soldier it identified as Philip W. Ackly, saying it turned over a dogtag bearing that name.

It said the North gave the notification to the U.S. through an American military delegate in South Korea on Jan. 27 and Feb. 26.

David Oten, a spokesman for the U.S. military command in Seoul, said that the Jan. 27 meeting took place at the border village of Panmunjom at the North's request and the country conveyed its position on U.S. remains recovery.

[Associated Press; By HYUNG-JIN KIM]

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.