This is good news for the families still missing the remains of their loved ones in North Korea:

The U.S. Defense Department says that the U.S. and North Korea have agreed to resume the halted excavation of the remains of U.S. soldiers from the Korean War.

The U.S. Defense Department announced Thursday the agreement to continue the excavations was reached in three-day talks held in Bangkok from Tuesday. The department said more than 79-hundred U.S. soldiers went missing in action in North Korea between 1950 and 1953, and of them, 55-hundred are still believed to be missing.

The U.S. halted the excavation missions in 2005 due to the unguaranteed safety of U.S. excavators amid increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Prior to the halt, the U.S. conducted operations in North Korea for 10 years, recovering the remains of more than 225 U.S. soldiers.

The Bangkok talks were proposed by the U.S. in early August, and North Korea accepted the proposal on August 19th.  [KBS Global]

I haven’t seen anything though on how much the US is paying North Korea for recovering the remains.  This is an issue that is quite difficult to reconcile because the recovery of Korean War remains has been shut down since 2005 because the program had became of a money maker for North Korea.  At the same time though it is nice to be able to provide the families of missing in action the return of their loved ones for burial.  The way I have always felt on this issue is that this is an area of cooperation I would like to see get re-started with North Korea as long as they don’t try and charge some extravagant price for the return of Korean War dead.  You can read more about my views on this here.