British veterans have welcomed reports that North Korea is willing to return the remains of servicemen killed during the Korean War and hope that some of the 336 Britons still listed as missing in the conflict might soon be handed over at the border truce village of Panmunjom.
B ritish veterans have welcomed reports that North Korea is willing to return the remains of servicemen killed during the Korean War and hope that some of the 336 Britons still listed as missing in the conflict might soon be handed over at the border truce village of Panmunjom.
Pyongyang is presently in discussions with the United States over the return of around 200 sets of remains that have been found in the North since the end of the three-year Korean War in 1953.
Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, is due to return to Pyongyang this week for direct talks with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, over the creation of a firm timeline for North Korea to abolish its nuclear research capabilities and its stockpile of nuclear warheads.
Caskets have already been delivered to the North and Pyongyang is expected to release the remains as a show of good faith in ongoing discussions that many analysts are claiming have lagged due to deliberate foot-dragging by Kim’s regime.
While the majority of those remains are likely to be of US military personnel, veterans here believe they may include British troops because many were issued with US equipment and record-keeping at prisoner of war camps where troops died and were buried was virtually non-existent.
E ven if this first exchange of remains does not include British troops, the veterans say, warming ties across the Demilitarised Zone means that more sets of remains could be returned in the future.
A nd they insist they will go to the funerals of any of their former comrades-in-arms, wherever they are finally laid to rest.
Among those missing men with no known grave are Corporal R. D. Weaver, a regular soldier, Private A. D. Maile, a National Serviceman thought to have joined in June or July 1949, and Private W.
