The talks in Bangkok come amid a renewed push to revive negotiations with regional powers on disabling secretive DPRK’s nuclear weapons program.

The US delegation will be headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert Newberry and include officials from the State Department and Pentagon agencies responsible for missing personnel, the Pentagon said on October 17.

Other signals may include whether the United States offers the DPRK food aid - a decision US officials say is not affected by political factors - and whether US envoy Stephen Bosworth may hold a new round of talks with the DPRK.

In July, Bosworth held two days of talks with a veteran DPRK nuclear negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, in New York -- their first such contact since 2009.

More than 7,900 US soldiers are listed as missing from the Korean War, with some 5,500 estimated to be buried in the North. Joint recovery efforts were halted in May 2005 over concerns about the uncertain environment created by the DPRK’s nuclear programs.

The Pyongyang has long sought to sign a peace treaty with Washington to formally end decades of enmity since the war, which ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.