‘We’re being told to be ready’: Will US make first trip to North Korea since 2005 to recover war remains?

Jennie Jin, a DPAA forensic anthropologist, and John Figuerres, a senior operations officer, meet with the Hankyoreh and other foreign correspondents at their offices at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii on Sept. 10, 2026. (Kim Won-chul/Hankyoreh)

The US government agency that accounts for POW/MIA service members has been instructed to prepare to resume recovering the remains of US service members in North Korea if diplomatic conditions allow access, a senior official said.

“We’re ready to go,” said John Figuerres, a senior operations officer at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), an agency of the US Defense Department, adding that the agency was currently standing by because the decision on whether to enter North Korea would be made at a higher level.

Figuerres met with foreign correspondents, including one from the Hankyoreh, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii on Thursday.

Figuerres cautioned, however, that a return to North Korea could not happen all at once. “If the environment becomes permissive,” he said, operations would have to proceed in stages, taking into account personnel and scheduling considerations.

Since field teams are already carrying out other missions, the timing and manner of any deployment to North Korea would still require coordination even if a decision were made to resume operations there.

Asked whether there were any signs that cooperation with North Korea could resume, Figuerres pointed to news reports about the subject, which he said suggested that the possibility was at least being discussed. He noted that such discussions were not taking place several years ago.

This is not the first time DPAA has drawn up plans for operations in North Korea. Figuerres said the agency has long maintained plans for entering the country because the remains of many US service members who went missing in the Korean War are believed to remain there.

The official said DPAA has “always had plans” for where it would operate in North Korea and what it would do there but added that those plans would need to be updated to reflect conditions on the ground.

Figuerres also addressed earlier comments by the DPAA director that the White House had asked whether the agency was prepared for possible operations in North Korea. He explained that the fact that such messages had made their way to the working level means the agency should keep in mind possible dispatches to North Korea, review existing plans, and make necessary preparations.

 Being prepared in advance would put the agency in a better position than receiving sudden orders to deploy while being completely unprepared, Figuerres said.

 When asked if the White House had made any additional requests or orders, Figuerres said he was not aware of any. He said that there had been internal discussion following the director’s comments and subsequent news coverage, after which the agency agreed to start preparations, but that he had received no further information.

 If the DPAA is able to return to North Korea, it hopes to first take custody of US service members’ remains that North Korea appears to already hold before resuming field recovery operations.

 Jennie Jin, a DPAA forensic anthropologist, stated that the agency knows that North Korea possesses remains, so its priority is to recover them before resuming field operations.

 Jin explained that the DPAA has launched 33 field recovery operations in North Korea from 1996 to 2005, so the agency knows which sites it would like to visit.

 Jin identified the Chosin Reservoir as a key site, noting that many service members went missing near the reservoir. The western side of the reservoir, an area that the US was not allowed access to, is among the areas the DPAA hopes to reach.

 The DPAA received 55 boxes of US service members’ remains from North Korea in 2018. Jin, who had been able to enter North Korea at the time, revealed that those boxes contained the combined remains of 250 people, 25 of which had been identified as US service members.

 She said 90 others were determined to be Korean troops who had fought alongside US forces, primarily Korean Augmentation to the US Army (KATUSA) personnel, and their remains had been repatriated to Korea.