North Korea, U.S. set talks on war dead for Oct. 16-18 in Bangkok

North Korea and the United States have agreed to hold “working-level” talks on resuming recovery missions for the remains of American troops killed during the Korean War on Oct. 16-18 in Bangkok, a senior Seoul diplomat said Tuesday.

The talks come amid a flurry of recent diplomatic efforts by South Korea and the U.S. to reopen the long-stalled six-nation talks on ending the North’s nuclear weapons programs.

“To my understanding, North Korea and the U.S. agreed to hold working-level talks on Oct. 16-18 in the Thai capital of Bangkok,” the senior diplomat said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.

“The two sides agreed to resume the talks from the perspective of humanitarianism, and the talks, if resumed, won’t affect ongoing diplomatic efforts to reopen the six-party talks.”

Aaron Tarver, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, declined to confirm the information, but said, “The United States considers remains recovery operations to be an important humanitarian mission.”

North Korean and U.S. officials had met on the issue in Bangkok in 2003 and agreed to conduct more recovery missions.

The U.S. suspended joint recovery efforts with North Korea in 2005, citing the safety and security concerns of its workers as relations with Pyongyang deteriorated because of the North’s nuclear weapons ambitions.

In August, Washington proposed that North Korea hold talks on resuming the recovery missions and Pyongyang accepted.

About 8,000 U.S. troops are listed as missing from the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in 1953 without a peace treaty and more than half of them are estimated to be buried in the North.

Last month, the chief nuclear negotiators from the two Koreas held a second round of talks in Beijing and discussed terms for resuming the six-party talks, which also include the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

Their first meeting in July prompted senior North Korean and U.S. diplomats to hold a rare meeting in New York.

After last month’s inter-Korean talks in Beijing, South Korean officials said that North Korea wants to hold a fresh round of bilateral meetings with the U.S. this month.

The six-party talks, aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for economic and political aid, have been dormant since Pyongyang quit them in April 2009 and conducted its second nuclear test a month later.

The North has long sought to improve relations with the U.S. and sign a peace treaty to formally end decades of enmity since the war. 

(Yonhap News)