The United States on Tuesday signaled it was still interested in talking to a former US soldier believed to have defected to North Korea in 1952, hoping he can help trace Americans still missing from the Korean war.
Sergeant Charles Jenkins still lives in Stalinist North Korea, a US Cold War foe, and is married to a Japanese woman abducted by North Korean agents in 1978 who paid an emotional first visit home to Japan earlier on Tuesday.
”The United States has sought to talk to this person and other Americans who are known to be in North Korea,” said State Department representative Richard Boucher. He said Washington was interested in finding out if Jenkins had heard of or knew the whereabouts of any other missing Americans.
”Part of our missing persons effort we have under way including efforts in North Korea to find Americans who are still missing from the war,” he said.
Boucher said that US officials had not been aware of Jenkins’ marriage until Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited North Korea last month, and brought back information on Japanese abductees.
Earlier on Tuesday, five Japanese kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s arrived in Tokyo for their first visit home in more than two decades.
They included Hitomi Soga (43) who Japanese officials have said is marred to Jenkins. The homecoming came after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il acknowledged the abduction of Japanese nationals for the first time at a landmark summit with Koizumi.
Koizumi was spurred by the admission to agree to resume talks on normalising diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.
The United States has held regular talks with North Korea on the issue of US soldiers still missing in action from the 1950-53 Korean War, even while official political dialogues between the two sides have been stalled.
Remains of 170 US soldiers have been repatriated in the last seven years, but Washington has called upon Pyongyang to provide more details of men taken prisoner, who could possibly be still alive. More than 8 100 American soldiers are said to be missing in action from the war, according to US defence statistics. – Sapa-AFP