N. Korea, U.S. in contact for remains recovery: official

By Lee Chi-dong WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has "responded" to the U.S. government's push for the resumption of works to recover the remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War and the two sides are in "communication" over it, a U.S. government official said Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) recently sent a letter to Pyongyang "indicating interest in discussing the resumption of remains recovery" in the North, according to Maj. Carie Parker, spokeswoman at the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO). The DPMO is affiliated with the department. "The North Korean government has now responded to the DoD letter, and the DoD is in communication with North Korea to discuss the next steps for the resumption of remains recovery operations," she told Yonhap News Agency. The move comes after Pyongyang and Washington restarted high-level talks in late July on the communist nations' nuclear weapons program and bilateral relations. Last week, the U.S. announced a plan to provide $900,000 worth of emergency relief materials to the flood-ravaged North. Parker said the U.S. government is actively trying to locate, recover and identify our missing personnel from all wars from World War II forward. There are 7,988 U.S. servicemen still unaccounted for from the 1950-53 Korean War and 5,500 of them are estimated to be missing in North Korea, she said. Joint recovery efforts between the two sides were suspended in 2005 after Washington took issue with the safety and security of its workers.