Turkey and North Korea have begun negotiations over the return of remains for almost 500 Turkish soldiers killed during the Korean War, Turkish outlet Habertürk reported late Tuesday.

The Turkish Ambassador to South Korea Ersin Erçin, who recently also became ambassador-at-large to North Korea, told Habertürk that Turkey began negotiating the return of remains with Pyongyang following the the June 12 U.S.-DPRK summit in Singapore.

Erçin described talks as the start of a process where Turkey would first provide DNA samples to North Korea to help identify 487 soldiers believed to have perished in DPRK territory during the 1950-1953 war.