SEOUL, Aug. 5 (UPI) — Pyongyang did not respond to Seoul’s plan to repatriate the remains of a North Korean national discovered on the southern side of the inter-Korean border, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Tuesday.
Last week, the ministry announced its plans to transfer the body of the presumed North Korean citizen via the truce village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ. It urged the North to respond by 3 p.m. Tuesday through an inter-Korean hotline that has not been used since April 2023.
Since the North failed to reply, authorities will proceed “in accordance with guidelines for handling North Korean bodies,” the ministry said in a message to reporters.
“The local government will conduct a respectful funeral in accordance with procedures for handling unclaimed bodies,” the message said.
South Korean authorities found a body believed to be that of a North Korean man on June 21 off the coast of Seongmodo Island in the Yellow Sea. He was born in 1988 and was a farm worker in North Hwanghae Province, the ministry said last week, citing an identification card found on the body.
The attempted repatriation was the latest effort by the administration of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to thaw relations with the North.
On Monday, the South Korean military began removing loudspeakers that had been installed along the DMZ to blast anti-Pyongyang messages across the border, a gesture officials called a “practical measure that will help ease tensions.”
Last month, Seoul repatriated six North Koreans who drifted into southern waters on wooden boats. The North did not respond to any of Seoul’s notification efforts regarding the repatriation plan, which were made via the U.S.-led United Nations Command, but sent vessels to the border to retrieve its citizens.
The Unification Ministry also recently used a press briefing to request that the North give advance notice before releasing water from a dam across the border. Ministry spokeswoman Chang Yoon-jeong called the public appeal a form of “indirect communication” with Pyongyang.
North Korea has rebuffed any efforts at rapprochement, however. Last week, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said that Pyongyang had “no interest” in engaging with Seoul.