Washington DC, Jun 20 (EFE).- The president of the United States announced Wednesday that North Korea has already returned the remains of some 200 American soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War.
“We got back our great fallen heroes the remains and today already 200 have been sent back,” Donald Trump announced during a public rally in Minnesota.
The president, however, did not provide further details on the delivery process nor did he clarify whether the remains had already arrived in the US.
In addition to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the repatriation of the US soldiers killed during the conflict is another request made by Washington during the negotiations with Pyongyang.
Trump revealed earlier last week in an interview with Fox News that the repatriation process had already begun.
More than 36,000 US troops died in the Korean War and about 7,700 more disappeared, 5,300 of whom are believed to have gone missing in the north.
A joint US-North Korea search team recovered 229 bodies between 1996 and 2005, but Washington later suspended the search effort due to diplomatic tensions.
In 2007, Pyongyang delivered another six bodies to the US.
Pentagon sources explained earlier this week that after arriving on US soil, the remains will be transferred to military facilities in Nebraska or Hawaii for identification.