A prominent veterans group is urging President Trump to press North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their summit on returning the remains of thousands of U.S. troops who have been missing for more than six decades.
About 5,300 service members who fought in the North during the Korean War have never been accounted for, and past arrangements with North Korea to recover and return the remains to families fizzled, according to a letter sent to Trump last week written by Keith Harman, the Veterans of Foreign Wars commander-in-chief.
“As the leader of the free world, we urge you to do everything in your power to ensure that those who paid the ultimate price for freedom during the Korean War are finally returned home to their families,” Harman wrote.
Trump is set to meet with Kim in a historic summit Monday night Washington time that aims to negotiate an end to the regime’s nuclear weapons program.
Harman told Trump that an earlier repatriation agreement with North Korea led to the return of the remains of 229 missing troops between 1990 and 2005.
But the program was suspended due to “deteriorating political conditions” and attempts to revive it have been mostly unsuccessful, Harman wrote.
“For the families of those who never returned, the passage of time does not heal their wounds. For them, the days become weeks, the weeks become months, then years and now, sadly, decades,” he wrote.
