The Unification Ministry will return to North Korea the remains of a former North Korean spy, Chung Soon-taek, who died of cancer this week.

The ministry said Sunday that the government has accepted the request of the North's Red Cross Central Committee Chairman Jang Jae-eon.

Chung died Friday while serving a 31-year prison term for espionage. He was one of 29 captured North Korean spies who refused to renounce communism for decades.

Born in South Chungcheong Province, he moved to the North for ideological reasons in 1948 and was arrested in 1958 in South Korea.

The government said it asked Chung's family last month to visit him after his condition suddenly deteriorated, and informed of his death.