This file photo, provided by South Korea’s unification ministry on July 27, 2021, shows an inter-Korean communication channel installed at the truce village of Panmunjom.(Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea has not responded to South Korea’s move to hand over the body of a North Korean national found on a western island in June, Seoul’s unification ministry said Tuesday.
The North has snubbed Seoul’s call to respond to the South’s plan to transfer the body of a presumed North Korean man via the truce village of Panmunjom by 3 p.m. Tuesday.
The body was found on the shore of Seongmo Island, a South Korean island in the Yellow Sea, in late June, with his belongings.
As there had been no response by the North by the proposed deadline, the body will be classified as unclaimed, and a funeral will take place, the ministry said in a notice to the press.
The body will be cremated after consultation with a related provincial government.
A total of 29 bodies of what are presumed to be North Korean nationals have been found in South Korean territory since 2010. Of them, North Korea has not received six bodies, including two in 2023. North Korea last brought home the body of its national found in the South in 2019.
North Korea remains unresponsive to the Lee Jae Myung administration’s overtures to resume dialogue and mend frayed inter-Korean ties.
(Yonhap)
