Seoul: South Korea on Thursday received the remains of four soldiers presumed to be Turkish nationals who were killed while fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War after their return from the United States, the defense ministry said. The remains were sent to South Korea via the United Nations Command earlier in the day after they were transported to a U.S. military base in South Korea from Hawaii last week.
According to Yonhap News Agency, three of the remains were discovered in North Korea between 1996 and 2005 during a joint recovery operation by the U.S. and North Korea. The other remains had been buried at a cemetery in Hawaii following repatriation through war remains exchanges between U.N. troops and North Korea. Initially, these remains were thought to belong to U.S. troops or were unidentified, but they were later recognized as those presumed to be Turkish soldiers.
The ministry's Agency for KIA (Killed in Action) Recovery and Identification has announced plans to closely examine the war remains. The agency aims to either repatriate the remains to the fallen troops' home country or inter them at the U.N. Memorial Cemetery in the southeastern city of Busan.