Pyongyang is not responding to Seoul’s call to reclaim the body of a presumed North Korean found in South Korean waters last month.

The Unification Ministry said it informed Pyongyang last Wednesday, through the UN Command Military Armistice Commission, that it would hand over the body through the truce village of Panmunjeom on Monday, but got no response.

A ministry official said they will keep the body in a freezer for the time being, but if the North continues to remain silent, it will be cremated, according to local procedures established to deal with bodies found without families.

The body of a man, believed to be in his 40s, was found on August 30th by the South Korean Coast Guard drifting in waters nine-point-five kilometers southwest of Daeyeonpyeong Island near the inter-Korean maritime border.

A joint inspection by related South Korean government agencies concluded the body was of a North Korean national, and the government decided it should be repatriated to the North.

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