The propagation and interaction properties of optical vortex solitons in a self-defocusing Kerr-type nonlocal medium are investigated by the numerical simulation method. It is indicated that the singly charged vortices are stable and the multicharged vortices are topologically unstable in both the nonlocal and local cases. And in the nonlocal and local cases the point vortices model is applicable for describing the interactions of vortices provided that the interval distances between vortices are much larger than the size of the core of the vortices. However, vortices interact differently in short distance, depending on the nonlocality, and the larger the characteristic nonlocal respond length, the larger the rotating period of two singly charged vortices.