AP EXCLUSIVE: US remains in N. Korea lost in political limbo

[...] for more than a decade, no one has been trying to find out.

"[...] They Are Home" is one of the most sacred vows of the U.S. military, yet Washington has long suspended efforts to look for 5,300 American GIs missing in North Korea whose remains are potentially recoverable.

Between 1996 and 2005, joint U.S.-North Korea search teams conducted 33 joint recovery operations and recovered 229 sets of American remains.

Talks to restart recovery work resumed in 2011, only to fall apart after North Korea launched a rocket condemned by the U.S. as a banned test of ballistic missile technology.

With distrust between the two countries chronically high, it took months of requests before The Associated Press was allowed to go to Ryongyon-ri, first last May with a Korean People's Army escort and again in December.

The AP made the requests because North Korea's state-run media have repeatedly said — without giving details — that with construction, agricultural and other infrastructure projects going forward, time is running out for the U.S. military to collect its Korean War dead.

In Washington, such claims are often seen as a not-so-subtle jab at the U.S. government for halting the searches, or an effort to guilt the U.S. into formal talks it has refused to engage in as long as Pyongyang continues its nuclear weapons program.

According to the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, most died in major battles or as prisoners of war.

The Chosin Reservoir, where another major campaign was fought, and POW camp burial grounds near the Chinese border are also priority sites.

U.S. efforts to recover Korean War remains are a humanitarian effort for our missing servicemen, their families and the American people.

[...] Maj. Natasha Waggoner, another spokeswoman for the agency, said there is no schedule "at this time" to hold talks to send any search teams back.

[...] they do, the jury will remain out on the Ryongyon-ri remains.

Under President Bill Clinton, the two countries had signed an agreement for the North to freeze its illicit plutonium weapons program in exchange for aid.

Kinard told the AP from his home in Texas he is in regular contact with the DPAA and feels it is doing the best it can with limited resources and the challenges it faces of getting into North Korea to conduct searches.