US expresses frustration that North Korea is blocking efforts to recover remains of American casualties from Korean War

CNN —

The US expressed frustration Wednesday that North Korea is continuing to refuse to allow teams into the reclusive country to recover the remains of American casualties from the Korean War.

“The United States government reaches out often to North Korea on any number of issues, one of which is this particular mission. There has been no response at all, at all levels of the United States government, in their communications with North Korea … We are at the mercy of geopolitics,” the director of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Kelly McKeague, said Wednesday.

Of the estimated 7,500 US service members still missing from the Korean War, 5,300 are believed to be in North Korea, McKeague said. Roughly 37,000 Americans were killed during the war and 8,000 were missing, according to the Pentagon. The war lasted from June 1950 to July 1953, when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed.

According to the DPAA’s website, there are more than 81,500 Americans total still missing from the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Cold War, World War II, and other conflicts.

McKeague spoke with reporters Wednesday ahead of annual briefings with more than 400 family members of those lost in the Korean War and Cold War, to “provide them updates on their loved ones.”

McKeague told reporters that North Korea has not responded to outreach by the US government since March 2019, roughly a year after it turned over 55 boxes of remains of US troops in July 2018. The rare move was a commitment resulting from a meeting between then-President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore. The DPAA is continuing to work through identification of remains it has received from North Korea, though McKeague acknowledged that it is far from