U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) last week pressed U.S. President Donald Trump to address bringing home the remains of U.S. soldiers still missing from the Korean War during planned meetings this week between the president and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Trump and Kim are slated to meet in Hanoi, Vietnam this week to deliberate myriad diplomatic issues, including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
“The families of our fallen service members have already waited more than half a century for the bodies of their loved ones to be returned,” Rep. Buchanan wrote in a recent letter to the president. “They should not be forced to wait any longer.”
More than 5,000 of the 36,000 American soldiers who died in the three-year Korean War between North Korea and South Korea are estimated to be still be missing in action, according to Rep. Buchanan.
“While your overall goal of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program is of paramount importance and cannot be overlooked, I hope that you will use this occasion to press the North Korean leader to renew his country’s efforts to identify, recover and return the remains of our service members still missing from the war,” the congressman wrote Trump.
Rep. Buchanan also commended the president for trying to make progress in 2018 with Kim to ensure the remains of 55 Americans would be returned, but wrote that “much more work needs to be done.”
“As you know, prior to the recent return of remains this summer, it had been more than 13 years since North Korea last returned remains of American troops missing from the Korean War,” he wrote. “Between 1996 and 2005, joint U.S.-North Korea efforts to recover remains of U.S. soldiers resulted in the remains of 229 American soldiers being returned. However, search efforts were halted in 2005 due to ongoing threats to the safety of Americans involved.”
Rep. Buchanan wrote that the still-missing soldiers come from all five branches of the United States military and all 50 states.
“It is imperative that Pyongyang faithfully follows through on its commitment to repatriate their remains and that these efforts are expedited without further delay,” he wrote.