Pentagon: N.Korea, US hold talks on war dead

The United States and North Korea began talks on resuming efforts to recover the remains of Americans killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, amid tentative signs of a thaw in relations. A US delegation met North Korean counterparts in Bangkok for negotiations that were expected to last for two or three days, Major Carie Parker, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Defense, told AFP on Tuesday. The announcement suggested a slight easing of relations after diplomatic efforts to revive stalled nuclear disarmament talks. The Pentagon said in a statement that the Bangkok negotiations would only address the issue of recovering remains from the Korean War, in which the United States led a United Nations force fighting alongside South Korea. The US Department of Defense says more than 7,900 Americans are missing from the conflict, with 5,500 of those believed missing in North Korea. Joint US-North Korean search teams, in 33 missions in the North from 1996 to 2005, recovered the probable remains of 229 of them. But cooperation broke down in 2005 when the United States voiced concerns for the safety of its personnel as relations soured over North Korea's nuclear programme. The US delegation, which will include representatives from US Pacific Command and United Nations Command in Korea, will be led by Robert Newberry, deputy assistant secretary of defense for prisoner of war and missing personnel affairs, the Pentagon said. It was unclear who was representing North Korea. The talks coincided with a report by South Korea's Yonhap news agency that the North and the United States will hold a second meeting next week in Geneva to discuss how to restart six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament. The two sides held a first round of discussions in New York in late July to assess the chances of resuming the negotiations, which also include South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. The North abandoned the six-party talks in April 2009 and staged its second nuclear test a month later. It now wants an unconditional resumption. The United States and South Korea say the communist state must first show it is serious about the process, for example by shutting down its uranium enrichment activities, which could be reconfigured to make atomic weapons. The North has long sought to sign a peace treaty with the United States to formally end the Korean War, which finished with only an armistice. Washington says the issue should be discussed in the context of the six-party nuclear talks.