Indonesia invites Moon, Kim to Asian Games
JAKARTA — The leaders of the two countries on the Korean Peninsula have been invited to next month’s Asian Games in Indonesia, Jakarta said on Monday, after the neighbors agreed to field several joint teams at the event.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo sent a formal invitation on Friday to President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea and Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Widodo’s spokesman said, but it was not immediately clear if either has responded.
“The invitation letters have been sent to the leaders,” spokesman Johan Budi said.
Last month, Asian Games organizers announced that Pyongyang and Seoul will field joint teams in three sports — canoeing, rowing and women’s basketball — in a sign of thawing tensions.
The two countries — which are technically still at war after the Korean War (1950-53) ended with an armistice instead of a peace treaty — will also march together at the opening and closing ceremonies for the showpiece event from Aug 18-Sept 2.
The Asian Games, to be held in Jakarta and Palembang on Sumatra island, will feature some 11,000 athletes competing in 40 sports — the second-biggest multisport event behind the Olympics.
The two neighbors formed their first unified Olympic team — a joint women’s ice hockey squad — for February’s Winter Games in the ROK, with the DPRK’s participation kicking off a thaw between them.
The diplomatic detente also triggered a rapid improvement in relations between Pyongyang and Washington, culminating in last month’s summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that the high-level talks held between representatives of the US and the DPRK earlier that day at the border village of Panmunjom to discuss the repatriation of the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean War “resulted in firm commitments”.
It was the first General Officer-level talks between them since 2009, which “were productive and cooperative”, said Pompeo, who was not part of the talks. They agreed to restart field operations in the DPRK to search for the estimated 5,300 US soldiers missing from the war, the top US diplomat said in a statement.