Jan Egeland, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, has announced that North Korea has requested the closure of a U.N. office in its capital Pyongyang.

Egeland said Thursday that the North is hoping that the Pyongyang branch of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs will be shut down.

Pyongyang informed the U.N. of its unwillingness to welcome Egeland, the new head of the OCHA's local office.

The current chief of the OCHA's Pyongyang office ends his tenure in August.

The U.N. official, however, stressed the need to maintain the office for humanitarian aid as there is still a great shortage of food and medicine in the impoverished North.

The U.N. and North Korea are currently discussing the matter.