Vice President Mike Pence will be in Hawaii on Wednesday for the arrival of the remains of possible U.S. service members who died in the Korean War.
North Korea released the remains this week, and they are scheduled to arrive Wednesday at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam to be identified.
The White House issued a statement from Pence on Friday, saying, “President Trump asked that I travel to Hawaii on August 1 to participate in the Honorable Carry Ceremony and receive the remains as they return to American soil. As the son of a Korean War combat veteran, it is deeply humbling to be part of this historic moment.”
Earlier Friday, North Korea returned 55 cases of possible American remains, which were brought to South Korea aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane.
After a ceremony in South Korea on Wednesday, the remains will be flown to Hawaii for identification under the DefensePOW/MIA Accounting Agency.
In hisstatement Friday, Pence also said, “Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump, North Korea committed to return the remains of our American service members who fell in the Korean War. … We will never forget the sacrifices these brave service members and their families made for our nation and our freedoms.”
Trump thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday for “fulfilling a promise” to return the remains of U.S. soldiers missing from the Korean War.
Close to 7,700 U.S. soldiers remain unaccounted for from the 1950-53 Korean War, and about 5,300 of those were lost in North Korea.
North Korea’s move signals a positive step in Trump’s diplomacy with Pyongyang, and might restart efforts to send U.S. teams into the country to search for additional war dead.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis cautioned that the transfer of remains “is separate” from what has so far been troubled efforts to negotiate the complete denuclearization of North Korea. But he said it was a step in the right direction following the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.
“This is obviously a gesture of carrying forward what they agreed to in Singapore, and we take it as such,” Mattis told reporters Friday. “We also look at it as a first step of a restarted process. So we do want to explore additional efforts to bring others home.”
Despite soaring rhetoric about denuclearization before the Singapore meeting, the summit ended with only a vague aspirational goal for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how that would occur.
Subsequent talks between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean officials got off to a rocky start earlier this month, with the North accusing the Americans of making “unilateral and gangsterlike” demands on denuclearization. On Wednesday, Pompeo said a great deal of work remains ahead of a North Korea denuclearization deal, but he declined to provide any timeline.
Trump, addressing reporters on the South Lawn, said Pence would greet the families and the remains of the soldiers.
“We have many others coming, but I want to thank Chairman Kim in front of the media for fulfilling a promise that he made to me, and I’m sure that he will continue to fulfill that promise as they search and search and search,” Trump said.
“These incredible American heroes will soon lay at rest on sacred American soil,” he added.
Once the cases arrive in Hawaii, a series of forensic examinations will be done to determine whether the remains are human and whether the dead were American or allied troops killed in the conflict.
Mattis underscored that looming question, saying, “We don’t know who’s in those boxes.” But he said the gesture is important for families of the fallen, which could include any of the allies that also fought in the war.
“We have families that when they got the telegram, have never had closure,” Mattis said. “They’ve never gone out and had the body returned.”
