SEOUL: US and North Korean officials held “productive” talks on Sunday to discuss the return of US service members’ remains missing since the Korean War, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

Pompeo, who was not part of the talks, said in a statement that working level meetings between US and North Korean officials would begin on Monday “to coordinate the next steps, including the transfer of remains already collected” in North Korea.

It was not immediately clear who took part in Sunday’s talks, held at the tense inter-Korean border. Pompeo said they were “the first General Officer-level talks” with North Korea since 2009.

He said the meeting “was aimed at fulfilling one of the commitments” made by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at last month’s summit with President Donald Trump in Singapore.

“Today’s talks were productive and cooperative and resulted in firm commitments,” Pompeo said.

“Additionally, both sides agreed to re-commence field operations in the DPRK to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who never returned home,” he said. North Korea is officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korean officials skipped a planned meeting with US officials over the war remains last week, citing lack of preparations. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the North then requested higher level talks with the US-led United Nations Command.

There’s speculation that Pyongyang is trying to fast-track discussions on more critical issues, such as reaching a declaration to formally end the war, which stopped on an armistice and not a peace treaty.

Sunday’s meeting came a week after Pompeo travelled to Pyongyang to begin follow-up talks to last month’s Singapore summit in which Trump and Kim issued vague aspirations for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur.

Last month, the US military moved 100 wooden coffins to the inter-Korean border to prepare for the return of US war remains, which was a rare tangible commitment the North made during the Trump-Kim summit.

About 7,700 US soldiers are listed as missing from the Korean War, and 5,300 of the missing are believed to be in North Korea. The war killed millions, including 36,000 American soldiers. Richard Downes, executive director of the Coalition of Families of Korean & Cold War POW/MIAs, said recently that he had been told the North may have the remains of more than 200 American service members that were likely recovered from land during farming or construction.

Efforts to recover US war remains have been stalled for more than a decade due to tensions over North Korea’s nuclear programme and a previous US claim that security arrangement for its personnel working in the North was insufficient.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2018