IOC meeting to discuss North Korea tensions

LONDON » Escalating tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have caused security challenges posed to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics to be assessed at an upcoming IOC meeting.

The International Olympic Committee session comes five months before the Winter Games are staged 80 kilometers (50 miles) across the border from North Korea.

Although regional concerns have been building for months amid new missile tests by the North, the pace has intensified since new sanctions were passed against Kim Jong Un’s regime by the U.N. Security Council last week.

It led to heated rhetoric between the United States and North Korea, with threats of attacks.

“We are monitoring the situation on the Korean peninsula and the region very closely,” the IOC said on Friday from Lausanne, Switzerland. “The IOC is keeping itself informed about the developments.

“We continue working

with the organizing committee on the preparations of these games which continue to be on track.”

France Olympic Committee president Denis Masseglia told The Associated Press the North Korea situation will be discussed

at the IOC Session in Lima, Peru, in September.

“There is no reason to be too worried at the moment,” Masseglia said. “We are five or six months away from the Olympics. We are monitoring the situation carefully.