North Korea on Wednesday announced that it has sentenced former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and former director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) Lee Byung-ho to be executed for allegedly ordering the assassination of Kim Jong Un.

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the joint statement by the Ministry of People's Security and the Central Public Prosecutors Office called on the government of South Korea to hand over the two former officials so their sentence may be carried out. A failure to do so, it said, would negatively impact inter-Korean relations.