North Korea Hints At Returning USS Pueblo

[Blackadder1916]

N. Korea hints at returning Pueblo: source
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/Engnews/20070415/610000000020070415113150E2.html

SEOUL, April 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea expressed its willingness to return an unarmed U.S. navy ship it captured nearly 40 years when a U.S. delegation visited the communist country last week, a diplomatic source said Sunday.

But North Korea provided no specific conditions for the return of the USS Pueblo, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. delegation, led by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, visited North Korea to retrieve the remains of six U.S. soldier from the 1950-53 Korean War. He returned to Seoul with the remains at the end of the four-day trip.

In North Korea, Richardson and other U.S. delegation members were taken to the U.S. ship on display for anti-U.S. propaganda at the Daedong River flowing through the North's capital Pyongyang, the source said.

"The North Korean side told the delegates that it can hand over the ship anytime, apparently to show off its will to liquidate its hostile relations with the U.S.," the source said.

The 906-ton U.S. ship is a symbol of Cold War confrontation between Pyongyang and Washington. The United States fought on South Korea's side in the Korean War. About 29,000 U.S. soldiers are currently stationed in South Korea.

The U.S. ship was seized off North Korea's coast on Jan. 23, 1968. In the attack, one U.S. sailor was killed and several others wounded. Eighty-two surviving sailors were held there for 11 months before they were released.

The U.S. identified the USS Pueblo as a research ship but North Korea claimed that it was on a spying mission.

It is not the first time that North Korean has expressed its willingness to return the 906-ton ship.

After a 2005 visit to Pyongyang, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg quoted North Korean officials as saying that they had no need to keep the ship if a top-level American official makes a trip to the communist country as a goodwill gesture towards normalizing relations between the two countries.

The latest North Korean gesture comes amid active international efforts to denuclearize North Korea. A Feb. 13 six-party agreement calls for improved ties between Pyongyang and Washington, aside from making the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free.

If the U.S. takes concrete steps to normalize relations with North Korea, the communist regime in Pyongyang may actually give back the ship, said the same source in Seoul.

(END)

 

[Exarecr]

  Theres a name I haven't heard since public school and our morning current affairs discussions in grade 8. I remember doing a short verbal report with regards to both sides of this incident though i suppose i was somewhat biased. The Captain of the ship died just a few years ago and ironically, his funeral was televised for all to see on a reality TV Funeral show who's name escapes me unfortunately. Odd how death brings out the oddity of life.

 

[geo]

I would propose that, if they do return the ship, the US Navy should gather up as many of it's crew as possible and have them bring the ship back into a friendly port (yokohama ?) ... prior to hauling her away to the wrecker's yard

 

[Blackadder1916]

Senator Suggests Deal For Return Of USS Pueblo
19th-century war trophy could help spur return captured ship from North Korea, legislator says
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/04/marine_pueblo_070418/

By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer  Posted : Wednesday Apr 18, 2007 22:56:12 EDT

A war trophy on display at the Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Md., may be the key to securing the return of a Navy ship captured by North Korea nearly 40 years ago, Senator Wayne Allard, R-Colo., wrote in a March 18 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The USS Pueblo is the only commissioned U.S. warship currently in foreign hands. It has been on display in the North Korean capitol of Pyongyang since it was captured off the North Korean coast during an intelligence-gathering mission on Jan. 23, 1968. North Korea held 82 of the ship’s crew for 11 months.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormick said in an April 17 briefing that the Pueblo is United States property and that “it should be returned” because its seizure was “in violation of international law,” according to the department’s Web site.

McCormick said North Korea did not offer to return the ship when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi visited Pyongyang early this month, and that “U.S. government members of the delegation declined an offer of a tour of the vessel,” according to the Web site.

Allard on April 18 introduced legislation in the Senate demanding the Pueblo’s return. In his letter to Rice, Allard wrote, “North Korea continues to hint at the possible return of the captured U.S. Navy ship, and I ask that you take action at this opportune time. In exchange for the U.S.S. Pueblo, it has been suggested by my constituents that the United States return General Uh Je-Yeon’s flag to North Korea.”

Korean General Uh Je-Yeon’s battle flag was captured by 105 Marines during an amphibious assault on his Kangwha Island stronghold at the mouth of the Han River that now separates North and South Koreas, according to an after-action report written by Asiatic Fleet commander Rear Adm. John Rodgers in 1871.

Je-Yeon’s bright yellow flag was one of 50 captured during the assault on Kangwha Island, according to Rodgers’ 1871 report. It is currently part of The United States Navy Trophy Flag Collection, which was “begun by an Act of Congress in 1814 and given to the care of the Naval Academy in 1849,” according to the Naval Academy Museum’s Web site.

At the time of the flag’s capture, North and South Korea were a single country called “Choson,” said Thomas Duvernay, a Korean History professor at Handog Global University in Pohang, South Korea.

He said the flag was symbolic of the commanding general and “in a way, the U.S. did Korea a favor, as it is, as far as I know, the only surviving Korean flag of its type.”

Duvernay called Je-Yeon’s battle flag “a national treasure of Korea.”

“Whereas it is currently housed in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, rolled up on a bottom shelf of a display case, it would most certainly rate its own climate-controlled display case, if not its own exhibit room, at one of the service academy museums here in Korea,” he said.

Somehow I think the North Koreans would want more than a flag in trade.