Nogun-ri Talks Get a Month's Deadline

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Nogun-ri Talks Get a Month's Deadline

With No Accord Reached on Killings, Issue Will End With Clinton's Term

Failing to bridge their views on whether American soldiers gunned down unarmed refugees at Nogun-ri under orders in the early stages of the Korean War, the two sides agreed Thursday to end negotiations before President Bill Clinton leaves office next month.

The last round of talks is expected to take place this month, but officials said final details of any agreement on the results of their separate inquiries will be made public later.

After a yearlong investigation into the alleged massacre of Nogun-ri, the two sides gathered in Seoul on Wednesday to coordinate their findings and draft a "Statement of Mutual Understanding" summarizing their separate inquiries.

The two sides began investigations after the Associated Press reported last year that U.S. forces shot and killed a large number of regugees at a railroad trestle in late July 1950. The press agency, quoting survivors and former GIs, said that U.S. officers issued the order because a number of North Korean infiltrators had disguised themselves as refugees.

The Associated Press report, which won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism and was based on the testimony of ex-Gis and Korean survivors, has been challenged as incomplete.

Although the U.S. investigators have acknowledged the soldiers' involvement, a senior South Korean official who took part in the two-day talks told the JoongAng Ilbo English Edition that the two sides could not coordinate their findings since they differ on the number of refugees killed by the U.S. soldiers and whether there were any orders to shoot the civilians.

"The testimonies of the survivors show that U.S. officers ordered the civilians shot," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"However, the United States is saying that there is no evidence that there were orders since the testimony by the U.S. soldiers conflicted."

The United States is reportedly saying that the soldiers fired out of a sense of panic.

According to the Korean findings, 248 people were killed, wounded or missing.

The United States is reportedly saying that the numbers cannot be determined.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post, quoting a Defense Department official and other sources, reported that the U.S. inquiry "did not find conclusive evidence that the troops had orders to shoot civilians."

However, the Korean official reported that the U.S. negotiators said that the Seoul government "need not be highly concerned over the report as they had not officially released the findings of their probe."

The talks between South Korea and the United States in Seoul lasted 16 hours and 20 minutes.

The South's delegation was headed by Kim Byong-ho, South Korea's assistant minister for public policy coordination at the prime minister's office.

The Pentagon delegation was led by an assistant secretary of the army, Patrick Henry.

by Lee Soo-jeong

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