The U.S. has notified North Korea it will suspend efforts to recover the remains of U.S. soldiers killed or lost during the Korean War due to the North's plan to launch a satellite.

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in a regular news briefing that North Korea has not acted appropriately recently and it’s important for the communist nation to return to the standards of behavior urged by the international community.

The U.S. Department of Defense said North Korea denied a U.S. excavation delegation’s entry into the North and broke its promises related to recovery efforts.

The department criticized Pyongyang for politicizing the issue of recovering remains by linking it to an annual South Korea-U.S. military drill.

The U.S. agreed with North Korea to resume the recovery of the remains of U.S. soldiers in March this year. The two sides reached the agreement in a bilateral meeting held in Bangkok in October last year.

The U.S. has recovered the remains of roughly two-hundred-20 soldiers over 33 missions since 1996. However, recovery was halted in 2005 over concerns for the safety of the excavation crews.