N. Korea accepts US request for talks on recovery of war dead

North Korea said Friday it has accepted a US proposal to resuming talks on recovering the remains of American soldiers killed during the 1950-1953 Korean War after a six year suspension. "The US side had some time ago sent an official letter to North Korea seeking talks for the excavation of remains," the official Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. The North affirmatively accepted the proposal from a humanitarianism standpoint, the spokesman said, adding that preparations for the talks between the militaries of the two countries are under way. About 8,000 US service members are listed as missing from the Korean War, which ended in 1953 in a truce, not a peace treaty. Of the total, some 5,400 are believed to be buried in North Korea. Joint US-North Korean search teams has recovered more than 220 sets of remains since 1996, but the excavation project was suspended in 2005 when the US expressed concerns for the safety of its personnel due to rising international tensions with North Korea over its nuclear program. The move came after Washington offered USD 900,000 in emergency relief supplies to flood-ravaged North Korea on Thursday.