hankyoreh

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will travel to North Korea next week to discuss the return of the remains of American servicemen missing from the 1950-53 Korean War, the White House announced Tuesday.

The governor will travel there with former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi from April 8 to 11, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said.

Richardson, a former United Nations ambassador, will lead a private, bipartisan U.S. delegation, accompanied by U.S. officials who will provide support and technical expertise, she said.

Victor Cha, director for Korea and Japan at the National Security Council, will travel with the governor. Richardson is expected to hold a news conference in Seoul after his North Korea trip.

"The United States government has invested considerable energy in persuading the DPRK to adhere to the provisions of the armistice agreement that cover repatriation of remains," Perino said.

DPRK stands for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"This trip will reinforce progress already achieved in this area," she said.

U.S. officials told Yonhap Richardson was going to Pyongyang to receive the remains of missing Americans that North Korea said it will turn over. They emphasized that this does not mean the recovery efforts will resume.

About 8,100 American soldiers are unaccounted for from the Korean War. North Korea handed over 208 sets of remains between 1990 and 1994, after which the U.S. found 229 more through joint recovery activities with the North up until 2005. The U.S. suspended the activities that year, "pending an assessment of the safety" of U.S. personnel.

The U.S. is said to have paid North Korea for the operations.

An administration official said negotiating the resumption of the recovery work is not part of the governor's mission and reiterated that Gov. Richardson was leading a private delegation.

"The trip does not indicate any change in the suspension or constitute a restart of those (operations). It should not be seen at all as a change of policy on that," she said.

Richardson was invited by North Korea and consulted with the administration, she said.

"We approved the visit for humanitarian reasons," the official said. "We also decided to provide some logistical and technical support."

The governor and his delegation will fly directly from New Mexico to North Korea on a U.S. military plane.

"This is not tied to the United States' previous remains recoveries in North Korea, and does not indicate that we are going to resume recovery operations in North Korea," Larry Greer, spokesman for the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, told Yonhap.

"They (North Koreans) are simply turning over remains that they have to the delegation led by Gov. Richardson and Mr. Principi."

He said the U.S. has not had, nor has plans for, talks with North Korea on resuming the operations.

Of the returned sets of remains, between 35 and 40 have been positively identified so far, Greer said.

Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate, has served in past administrations as an informal go-between for the U.S. and North Korea. He twice negotiated the release of Americans held in Pyongyang, in 1994 and 1996, and later hosted talks with North Korean diplomats in New Mexico.

An informed source, speaking on condition that he not be identified by name or affiliation, emphasized that the governor was not going as an official envoy.

The trip coincides with nascent signs of a thaw in Washington-Pyongyang relations that until the end of last year were deadlocked over North Korea's nuclear arms development. Six nations -- South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan -- struck an agreement in February in which Pyongyang would shut down and subsequently disable its nuclear weapons program in return for political and economic incentives provided by the other nations.
Washington, April 4 (Yonhap News)