SEOUL, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- A ceremony to repatriate the remains of 55 U.S. soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War was held in South Korea Wednesday afternoon.
The repatriation ceremony was held in the Osan Air Base, about 60 km south of the capital Seoul, from 5 p.m. local time (0800 GMT).
Attending the ceremony were South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), and U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris.
The ceremony came after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) returned 55 sets of remains on July 27.
Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump to repatriate the remains of U.S. troops at the first DPRK-U.S. summit in Singapore on June 12.
Under the agreement, the two leaders agreed to commit to recovering the remains of prisoners of war (POW) and those missing in action (MIA) during the Korean War, including an immediate repatriation of those already identified.
According to a UN Command press release, an estimated 629 sets of remains have been recovered since 1990. The DPRK has reportedly identified about 200 remains, believed to be U.S. troops killed in the war.
Two U.S. C-17 Globemaster military transport planes would carry the 55 remains of the U.S. war dead to a laboratory of the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, according to the UN Command.
In the DPAA lab in Hawaii, U.S. historians and scientists would work to help with identification before the remains are returned to next-of-kin for burial.
The remains were already examined and catalogued at the Osan Air Base by the DPAA from July 27 to July 31.
