Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng called on all parties today to show a united front in handling the North Korean "hostage" crisis.

Lim expressed hope that the 11 Malaysians who are stranded in Pyongyang after being barred from leaving North Korea, "can come home quickly".

"Let's show a united front now. After they have returned home, we can do a post-mortem (on the Malaysian government's handling of the crisis)," he told a press conference. 

Earlier this week, Pyongyang imposed a temporary ban on Malaysians leaving North Korea and Malaysia, in a tit-for-tat move, slapped a similar ban on North Koreans in Malaysia. 

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, in condemning North Korea's move as taking Malaysians hostage, said the country would, however, not cut ties with the communist country, as yet. 

The diplomatic tension between the two countries was ignited by the murder of Kim Jong-nam, the elder half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, at KLIA2 on Feb 13. 

North Korea, through its former ambassador Kang Chol, had levelled various accusations against Malaysia for declining to hand the body over to them.

Among the accusations were that Malaysia fabricated evidence in the case and colluded with hostile forces to insult North Korea.

This culminated in Malaysia expelling Kang, and North Korea to do the same to the Malaysian ambassador there, Mohamad Nizan Mohamad, although he had been recalled to Kuala Lumpur before this. 

Two women, a Vietnamese and an Indonesian, have since been charged with Jong-nam's murder, allegedly by applying the deadly VX nerve agent on his face at the airport.