Libya closed its embassy in North Korea last year and its relationship with the country is at "the minimum level," the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday, citing the South Korean envoy to the North African country. "Libya had been making efforts to rationalize its relationship with North Korea after the country''''s democratization (in 2011)," South Korean Ambassador to Libya Lee Jong-kook said in an interview with Yonhap. "Libya closed the diplomatic office because maintaining it requires a lot of costs on the Libyan side," said Lee. As a result of the shutdown, North Korea-Libya ties remain at their minimum, he said. Libya had close ties with North Korea after establishing diplomatic relations in 1974. The eruption of a civil war and the subsequent overthrow of Libya''''s former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 led to the democratization of the country. Source: KUNA