US and North Korean negotiators began a new round of talks in the Malaysian capital Wednesday about recovering the remains of thousands of American servicemen missing since the Korean War.
The previously unannounced round of talks is scheduled to last until Friday or Saturday, a US embassy statement said.
The discussions follow a "successful" meeting between the two sides in Kuala Lumpur in June on the US servicemen listed as MIA (missing in action), the statement said.
Negotiators from the US Defense Department's Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office met the North Koreans in the Shangri-La hotel to establish a schedule for recovery operations in the Stalinist state next year.
The statement said agreements reached during the June talks "led to the most successful year yet in the five years that US teams have been operating in North Korea."
During five separate operations this year the teams recovered remains believed to be those of 65 American soldiers. This compared with 42 sets of remains found between 1996-99.
Of the 107 sets of remains, only five have been positively identified and another 10 are "nearing the final stages of the forensic identification process."
More than 8,100 US servicemen are listed as missing in action from the 1950-53 war in which 34,000 Americans were killed.
The remains have been recovered in an area about 60 miles (37 miles) north of Pyongyang, many from the scene of fierce battles along the Chong Chon river.
Kuala Lumpur has become a favorite venue for talks between the US and its former Cold War enemy. Apart from the MIA discussions in June, talks on curbing the North's missile program were held in July and November but ended without agreement.
Specialists from the US Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii are going to extraordinary lengths to try to identify remains.
"One forensic tool that has become critically important to this identification work is that of mitochondria DNA," the statement said.
It said scientists were extracting DNA information from bones dug up in North Korea, then taking similar DNA information from blood samples "from the maternal bloodline of the deceased serviceman."
The statement said the Defense Department and the armed services have mounted an "aggressive outreach effort" to locate family members. So far about 2,500 families of those missing in Korea had been traced -- KUALA LUMPUR (AFP)
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