US prepares proposal to jointly recover Korean War remains with North Korea

As US President Donald Trump continues to court North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to restart dialogue, signs have emerged that the White House is making administrative preparations for a potential North Korea-US summit.

According to Yonhap, Kelly McKeague, director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, said Monday (local time) during a video discussion hosted by the National Committee on North Korea, a Washington-based nongovernmental organization, that the White House had asked DPAA what steps it could take if Trump reached an agreement with Kim.

DPAA is an agency under the US Department of Defense responsible for searching for, recovering and identifying the remains of missing American service members and returning them to their families.

"I would say this is not unlike the situation we were in leading up to the 2018 Singapore summit," McKeague said. "We were asked again what we could do, from the standpoint of realistic possibilities, if President Trump is able to reach an agreement with the North Korean leader."

McKeague said he told the White House that DPAA was "ready" to work with North Korea to recover the remains of US service members killed or taken prisoner during the Korean War.

"We explained to the White House that, first, it would be very helpful for North Korea to transfer remains it holds to the United States, and second, it would be helpful to resume joint field recovery operations, which last took place in 2005," he said.

McKeague did not specify exactly when the White House made the inquiry, but given Trump's recent overtures to Kim, the query likely came recently as well.

Trump has displayed his continued personal rapport with Kim, saying he intends to meet him before the end of the year, while significantly scaling back or canceling joint US-South Korea military exercises that North Korea has long condemned.

The White House's outreach to a government agency involved in North Korea affairs signals that Trump is preparing for a fourth meeting with Kim.

During his first term, Trump met Kim three times: at the Singapore summit in June 2018, at the Hanoi summit in Vietnam in February 2019, and at a meeting at Panmunjom in June 2019.

"We are hopeful, given that President Trump has publicly said there is an opportunity to meet," McKeague said. "He is willing to engage with the North Korean leader, just as he was in 2018."

"We particularly want to think of this mission in humanitarian terms above all else," he said. "It is a diplomatic tool that allows us to work with former adversaries or countries with current geopolitical tensions — one that can serve as an opportunity for dialogue, a channel of communication, and even humanitarian cooperation."

Joint discussions on recovering remains between the United States and North Korea were addressed at the 2018 Singapore summit but have since stalled.

DPAA estimates that the remains of some 5,300 US service members are still in North Korea and has long hoped to resume excavation and recovery operations there.