North Korea has returned the remains of what are believed to be US servicemen killed during the Korean War.

A US military plane has made a rare trip from a South Korean airbase to a coastal city in North Korea in order to retrieve the remains of the fallen servicemen.

During their summit last month, Kim Jong Un had promised Donald Trump that the handover would happen - making this the first tangible result from the talks.

A formal repatriation ceremony is going to be held at Osan air base in South Korea on 1 August, and on Thursday, serving US soldiers and a military honour guard lined the tarmac to receive the remains.

Image: The remains were carried in boxes covered in blue United Nations flags

They were carried in boxes covered in blue United Nations flags.

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Approximately, 7,700 US soldiers are listed as missing from the Korean War, which took place between 1950 and 1953 - and 5,300 of the remains are still believed to be in North Korea.

Millions died during the war, including 36,000 US soldiers.

:: How US can identify remains of soldiers who died 65 years ago

In a statement, the White House said: "Today, (Kim) is fulfilling part of the commitment he made to the president to return our fallen American service members.

"We are encouraged by North Korea's actions and the momentum for positive change."

Image: Guards carry boxes containing the remains upon the military plane's return to South Korea

On Twitter, Mr Trump added: "The Remains of American Servicemen will soon be leaving North Korea and heading to the United States! After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jong Un."

The transfer of the remains has coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement that ended fighting, although North and South Korea are technically still at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

The remains are expected to be flown to Hawaii for scientific testing to identify them.</s>An American military plane was able to enter North Korea Friday to pick up the remains of U.S. soldiers who fought during the Korean War.

Marking the 65th anniversary of the 1950-53 conflict's armistice, the Air Force transport aircraft flew from South Korea early in the morning before returning from the North to Osan Air Base south of Seoul around 11 a.m. (02:00 GMT).

Sources cited by local news agency Yonhap said there were about 55 sets of remains on board.

They will be inspected before a planned ceremony next Wednesday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump on June 12 to the "immediate repatriation" of remains that had already been identified.

The White House welcomed the move, highlighting that the North Korean leader "is fulfilling part of the commitment he made to the President to return our fallen American service members".

"We are encouraged by North Korea’s actions and the momentum for positive change," said the office of the White House Press Secretary in a statement.

"Today’s actions represent a significant first step to recommence the repatriation of remains from North Korea and to resume field operations in North Korea to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who have not yet returned home," the statement said.

As the American side was kept waiting, the matter was discussed when the U.S.-led UN Command held general-level talks with North Korea for the first time in nearly a decade earlier this month.

Before this latest development, official U.S. statistics showed that 7,699 American Korean War participants were still unaccounted for.

Meanwhile, the two Koreas will hold their own general-level military meeting next Tuesday, according to Seoul's defense ministry Friday.

Pyongyang apparently suggested the talks, which follow April's inter-Korean summit and their joint accord to ease border tensions.</s>North Korea on Friday returned the remains of what are believed to be U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War, the White House said, with a U.S military plane making a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 cases of remains.

The handover follows through on a promise North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made to U.S. President Donald Trump when the leaders met in June and is the first tangible result from the much-hyped summit. Trump welcomed the repatriation and thanked Kim in a tweet.

The United Nations Command said 55 cases of remains were retrieved from North Korea. The White House earlier confirmed that a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft containing remains of fallen service members had departed Wonsan, a Northern coastal city, on its way to the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, near the South Korean capital of Seoul. A formal repatriation ceremony will be held there Wednesday.

At the air base, U.S. servicemen and a military honour guard lined up on the tarmac to receive the remains, which were carried in boxes covered in blue UN flags.

About 7,700 U.S. soldiers are listed as missing from the 1950-53 Korean War, and 5,300 of the remains are believed to still be in North Korea. The war killed millions, including 36,000 American soldiers.

U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, in a statement from the UN Command, called the retrieval mission successful. "Now, we will prepare to honour our fallen before they continue on their journey home."

Following the honours ceremony on Wednesday, the remains will be flown to Hawaii for scientific testing. A series of forensic examinations will be done to determine if the remains are human and if the dead were American or allied troops killed in the conflict.

Trump late Thursday tweeted the repatriation was occurring and said, "After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jong-un."

Officials in North Korea had no comment on the handover on Friday, the 65th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, which the country celebrated as the day of "victory in the fatherland liberation war."

Despite soaring rhetoric about denuclearization before Kim and Trump met in Singapore, their summit ended with only a vague aspirational goal for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how that would occur.

The repatriation of remains could be followed by stronger North Korean demands for fast-tracked discussions to formally end the war, which was stopped with an armistice and not a peace treaty. South Korea's Defence Ministry also said the North agreed to general-level military talks next week at a border village to discuss reducing tensions across the countries' heavily armed border.

The U.S. military last month said that 100 wooden "temporary transit cases" built in Seoul were sent to the Joint Security Area at the Korean border as part of preparations to receive and transport remains in a dignified manner. U.S. Forces Korea spokesperson Col. Chad Carroll also said, at the time, that 158 metal transfer cases were sent to a U.S. air base and would be used to send the remains home.

North Korea last turned over remains in 2007

The remains are believed to be some of the more than 200 that North Korea has held in storage for some time, and were likely recovered from land during farming or construction. The vast majority of the war dead, however, have yet to be located and retrieved from cemeteries and battlefields across the countryside.

Efforts to recover American war dead had been stalled for more than a decade because of a standoff over North Korea's nuclear program and a previous U.S. claim that security arrangements for its personnel working in the North were insufficient.

From 1996 to 2005, joint U.S.-North Korea military search teams conducted 33 recovery operations that collected 229 sets of American remains. The last time North Korea turned over remains was in 2007, when Bill Richardson, a former UN ambassador and New Mexico governor, secured the return of six sets.

The North marked Friday's anniversary with ceremonies at war-related memorials; the capital Pyongyang and other cities were decked out in national flags and bright red banners. For the first time since 2015, Kim Jong-un has announced a general amnesty will be granted for prisoners who have committed crimes against the state.

North Korea has held out the return of remains as a symbol of its goodwill and intention to improve ties with Washington. Officials have bristled, however, at criticism from the U.S. that it seeks to profit from the repatriations by demanding excessive fees for handling and transporting the remains.</s>The North Korea leader was pictured laying a beautiful coloured flower wreath at the cemetery in South Phyongan province. Kim Jong-un stood before a huge statue of an armed North Korean solider as he paid his respects to the war dead. North Korea’s state media KCNA reported: “Kim Jong-un said that the Korean people would as ever take pride in having the creditable fraternal country and the great friend like the People's Republic of China.” The Korea War Armistice was signed on July 21, 1953 after three years of war and was designed to "ensure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved”.

The two Koreas are technically still at war because a peace treaty was never signed. The armistice was signed by representatives from the UN, Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Army. Kim Jong-un also attended a ceremony at Fatherland Liberation War Martyrs Cemetery in Pyongyang where he met with participants of the 5th National Conference of War Veterans. The North Korean dictator also laid another wreath at the cemetery.

To mark the anniversary North Korea transferred 55 small, flag-draped cases carrying the suspected remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean War on Friday, officials said. The pledge to transfer war remains was missing in the 1950-53 conflict seen as a goodwill gesture by Kim Jung-un at his June summit with Donald Trump. President Trump on his Twitter account said: ”After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jong-un.” A White House statement earlier said: "We are encouraged by North Korea's actions and the momentum for positive change."

A US military transport plane flew to an airfield in North Korea's northeastern city of Wonsan to bring the remains to Osan air base in South Korea, the White House statement said. Soldiers in dress uniforms with white gloves were seen slowly carrying 55 small cases covered with the blue-and-white U.N. insignia, placing them one by one into silver vans waiting on the tarmac in Osan. Straight-backed officers looked on next to the flags of the United States, South Korea and the United Nations. A formal repatriation ceremony would be held at Osan on Wednesday, the White House said.

The remains would then be flown to Hawaii for further processing under the US Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the U.N. Command said in a statement. More than 7,700 US troops who fought in the Korean War remain unaccounted for, with about 5,300 of those lost in what is now North Korea. Before Friday's transfer of remains, the United States and North Korea had worked on so-called joint field activities to recover Korean War remains from 1996-2005. Washington halted those operations, citing concerns about the safety of its personnel as Pyongyang stepped up its nuclear programme. More than 400 caskets of remains found in North Korea were returned to the United States between the 1990s and 2005, with the bodies of some 330 other Americans also accounted for, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.</s>North Korea transferred 55 cases carrying the remains of soldiers killed in the Korean War, the White House said on Thursday, a first step by Pyongyang to implement an agreement made in a landmark summit in June in Singapore.

The repatriation of remains of U.S. soldiers missing in the 1950-53 conflict is seen as a modest diplomatic coup for U.S. President Donald Trump because it was one of the agreements reached during his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12.

"Today, (Kim) is fulfilling part of the commitment he made to the President to return our fallen American service members. We are encouraged by North Korea's actions and the momentum for positive change," the White House said in a statement.

A U.S. military transport plane flew to an airfield in North Korea's northeastern city of Wonsan to bring the remains to Osan air base in South Korea, the statement said.

Soldiers in dress uniforms with white gloves were seen slowly carrying 55 small cases covered with the blue-and-white United Nations insignia, placing them one by one into silver vans waiting on the tarmac in Osan.

Straight-backed officers looked on next to the flags of the United States, South Korea and the United Nations.

A formal repatriation ceremony would be held at Osan on Wednesday, the White House statement said.

The transfer of the remains coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement that ended fighting, although the two Koreas are technically still at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

More than 7,700 U.S. troops who fought in the Korean War remain unaccounted for, with about 5,300 of those lost in what is now North Korea.

The pledge to transfer war remains was seen as a goodwill gesture by Kim at the June summit and, while it has taken longer than some U.S. officials had hoped, the handover will rekindle hopes for progress in nuclear talks.

Kim committed in a broad summit statement to work toward denuclearization but Pyongyang has offered no details about how it might go about this.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has said the return of the remains could boost the momentum for the nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

The two Koreas agreed to hold general-level military talks on Tuesday to discuss ways to implement their own summit in April in which they vowed to defuse tensions, Seoul's defence ministry said on Friday.

Pyongyang has renewed calls for a declaration of the end of the Korean War, calling it the "first process for peace" and an important way Washington can add heft to security guarantees it has pledged in return for North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons.

The U.S. State Department says Washington is committed to building a peace mechanism to replace the armistice "when North Korea has denuclearized."

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, banning luxury goods said to include recreational sports equipment.

The United States has blocked a request by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to transfer sports equipment to North Korea so its athletes can participate in the Olympic Games, United Nations diplomats said on Thursday.</s>SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea on Friday handed over 55 boxes carrying remains thought to be of U.S. soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, a first step in implementing an agreement reached at a landmark summit in June.

The handover of the boxes, draped in the blue and white flag of the United Nations, represents a modest diplomatic triumph for U.S. President Donald Trump from his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore that was aimed primarily at persuading North Korea to give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States.

“I want to thank Chairman Kim for keeping his word,” Trump said at a White House event, at which he hailed “great fallen heroes from America.”

“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 fulfil that promise as they search and search and search,” Trump said.

The transfer of the remains coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting between North Korean and Chinese forces and South Korean and U.S.-led forces under the U.N. Command. The two sides remain technically at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

More than 7,700 U.S. troops remain unaccounted for from the Korea War. About 5,300 were lost in what is now North Korea.

The pledge to transfer war remains was seen as a goodwill gesture by Kim at the summit. While it has taken longer than some U.S. officials had hoped, the handover will rekindle hopes for progress in nuclear talks, which so far has appeared scant.

Kim committed in a broad summit statement to work toward denuclearization but Pyongyang has offered no details, raising doubts about whether he is willing to give up his weapons unilaterally, as Washington has demanded.

In a statement on the remains handover, the White House said it was “encouraged by North Korea’s actions and the momentum for positive change.” South Korea called it “meaningful progress that could contribute to fostering trust” between Pyongyang and Washington.

A U.S. military transport plane flew the remains from North Korea’s northeastern city of Wonsan to Osan air base in South Korea.

At Osan, soldiers in dress uniforms with white gloves slowly carried the 55 cases to waiting vans.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters the remains would be reviewed initially in Korea before being flown to Hawaii for forensic identification.

While there was no indication of anything amiss, he said, it was still not known who was in the boxes.

“You noticed there was a U.N. blue flag on each of the boxes. Many of the U.N. nations with us also have missing,” he said.

“As we discover it, they’ll be returned and they could go to Australia; they have missing. France has missing. America has – there’s a whole lot of us,” he said.

“We have families when they got the telegram have never had closure. They’ve never gone out and had the body returned. What we’re seeing here is an opportunity to give those families closure, to make certain that we continue to look for those remaining.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 15 that Washington and Pyongyang had agreed to recommence field operations in North Korea to search for the thousands of Americans who never returned home from North Korea.

Mattis said the U.S. military was “absolutely” considering the possibility of sending personnel to North Korea for this purpose. He told reporters Friday’s handover set a positive tone for broader diplomatic negotiations.

The United States and North Korea conducted joint searches from 1996 until 2005, when Washington halted the operations, citing concerns about the safety of its personnel as Pyongyang stepped up its nuclear program.

More than 400 caskets of remains found in North Korea were returned to the United States between the 1990s and 2005, with the bodies of some 330 other Americans also accounted for, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

The programme helped bring in vital hard currency to North Korea, which has been under U.S.-led sanctions for decades. However, reviving it could complicate U.S. efforts to persuade countries around the world to maintain economic pressure on Pyongyang.

Pyongyang has renewed calls for a declaration of the end of the Korean War, calling it the “first process for peace” and an important way Washington can add heft to security guarantees it has pledged in return for North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons.

The U.S. State Department says Washington is committed to building a peace mechanism to replace the armistice when North Korea has denuclearized.

Pompeo said on Wednesday North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs despite its pledge to denuclearize, even as he argued that the United States was making progress in talks with Pyongyang.

Pompeo said North Korea had begun to dismantle a missile test site, something Kim also promised in Singapore, and called it “a good thing, steps forward.”

However, he said North Korea needed to follow through on its summit commitments to denuclearize and stressed the need to maintain sanctions until it did so.</s>North Korea has returned remains believed to be of 55 United States troops killed during the Korean War, bringing renewed hope to families who have waited decades for closure.

The return of the remains, brought to a U.S base in South Korea, is the latest move in the cautious diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang, the BBC reports.

The repatriation was agreed at the June summit between U.S President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

It is hoped more will follow.

“It’s hard to live your life not knowing what happened to your loved one,” the daughter of one missing serviceman told the BBC ahead of Friday’s news.

The Singapore summit, where Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim agreed to work towards the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” has been criticised for a lack of detail on when or how Pyongyang would renounce nuclear weapons.

But the return of U.S remains was one of four points actually listed in that June declaration, and comes on the 65th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War.

It is believed that 55 soldiers have been returned this time, but their remains will need to be forensically tested to ensure they are indeed slain U.S troops – and it’s possible the identification process could take years.

John Zimmerlee, the son of a U.S serviceman who is among the missing, told the BBC there was no guarantee these were the remains of American soldiers.</s>A US military plane touched down in South Korea on Friday after flying to North Korea, where it picked up what are thought to be the remains of US servicemen killed during the Korean war.

The plane landed at Osan Air Base outside of Seoul and was met by American soldiers lining up for a ceremony.

The transfer of the soldiers' remains to the US follows through on a promise made by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to US President Donald Trump when they met at a landmark summit in June.

It is one of the first concrete results of the summit, which primarily focused on the denuclearization of North Korea.

"Today, (Kim) is fulfilling part of the commitment he made to the President to return our fallen American service members. We are encouraged by North Korea's actions and the momentum for positive change," the White House said in a statement.

Trump also later thanked Kim on Twitter:

The number of soldiers whose remains were transferred is still unclear, though reports said that Pyongyang would return 55 sets of remains.

North Korean authorities likely recovered the remains during farming or construction. The majority of Americans killed in Korea, however, are still buried in cemeteries or the sites of major battles.

More than 7,000 soldiers are listed as missing from the Korean War, with around 5,300 believed to be in the North. Between 1990 and 2005, Pyongyang transferred 229 sets of remains to the US but stopped doing so as relations with Washington deteriorated over North Korea's nuclear program.

The remains flown to South Korea on Friday are expected to continue onward to Hawaii, where they will undergo forensic investigation to determine if they are human and are those of American troops.

The war that never ended

The war lasted from 1950 to 1953 and saw the Soviet-backed North invade the US-backed South. The United Nations eventually backed the US-led campaign. In total, the war killed over a million individuals, including some 36,000 American military personnel.

The return coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement, which ended the fighting but technically did not end the war between the Koreas because a peace treaty was never signed.

Read more: North Korea praises South after delegates return from Olympic visit</s>North Korea is about to return some remains of US service members killed in the Korean War, a ­report said Wednesday.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said the remains could be returned on Friday, the 65th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement that resulted in a cease-fire to the 1950-1953 war.

“North Korea recently took two truckloads of wooden boxes to be used for the remains repatriation. It’s expected to hand over the remains on July 27 as agreed upon,” a source told Yonhap.

Wooden boxes bearing the remains have been ­sitting for weeks in the border ­village of Panmunjom.

The remains will be airlifted to a forensic lab in Hawaii.

Returning the remains was one of the agreements struck between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their June summit in Singapore.</s>SEOUL: A US military aircraft flew the remains of more than 50 American servicemen out of North Korea on Friday, prompting a personal “thank you” from Donald Trump to Kim Jong Un.

The return of the remains — on the 65th anniversary of the end of the Korean War — marks the partial fulfilment of an agreement reached between the US president and North Korea’s leader at their historic summit in Singapore last month.

“After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jong Un,” Trump said in a tweet. The White House said it was “encouraged” by the return of the remains and the “momentum for positive change”.

“Today’s actions represent a significant first step to recommence the repatriation of remains from North Korea and to resume field operations in North Korea to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who have not yet returned home,” it said.

After leaving the North Korean port city of Wonsan, the C-17 cargo plane landed at the Osan US Air Base in South Korea, where American soldiers stood in ceremonial ranks.

The plane — which had 55 sets of remains on board, according to the United Nations Command (UNC) in South Korea — came to a halt next to a group of 10 honour guards carrying the flags of the UN, the US and South Korea.

After the rear door was opened, other uniformed guards went aboard and re-emerged each carrying in their arms a box draped in a white-and-blue UN flag.They then slowly walked to awaiting vans, put the boxes in the vehicles and saluted, before the vans left the scene.

“It was a successful mission following extensive coordination,” General Vincent Brooks, commander of the UNC and United States Forces Korea, said in a statement.“Now, we will prepare to honour our fallen before they continue on their journey home.”

More than 35,000 Americans were killed on the Korean Peninsula during the war, out of which around 7,700 are still considered missing, including 5,300 in North Korea alone, according to the Pentagon.

Between 1990 and 2005, 229 sets of remains from the North were repatriated, but those operations were suspended when ties deteriorated over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.

The remains flown to Osan on Friday are expected to be sent to Hawaii for forensic identification, following a formal repatriation ceremony next Wednesday.Trump has hailed his summit agreement with Kim as effectively ending the North Korean nuclear threat, although it contained only an ill-defined commitment on Pyongyang’s part to the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” — a long way from the complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament demanded by Washington. The issue of repatriating remains of American war dead was seen as a far less contentious one, and the summit agreement specified the immediate return of those remains “already identified.”

According to US officials, North Korea is estimated to have as many as 200 sets of remains ready for delivery.Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who has worked on repatriation issues and visited North Korea several times, warned that Pyongyang might hold up further repatriations in order to squeeze some cash out of the United States.

“They’ll give a certain amount of remains for free right away,” Richardson told the Washington Post. “But then they’ll say, ‘The next ones, we need to find them, locate them, restore them.’ And then they’ll start charging, and they’ll milk this.”

The initial repatriation provides the White House with a tangible result from the Singapore summit, which has otherwise failed to deliver on the denuclearisation expectations raised by the US president.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was despatched to Pyongyang in early July to nail down the North’s summit commitments — including returning the remains of US servicemen.
North Korea returns what it says are the remains of 55 U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War on the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement. The repatriation was agreed at the June summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a bid to improve relations.