NKorea to send Olympic team
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea agreed Tuesday to send athletes to February’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, a symbolic breakthrough after months of escalating tensions over the North’s rapidly advancing nuclear and missile programs.
In talks held at the border village of Panmunjom, North Korean negotiators quickly accepted South Korea’s request to send a large delegation to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, next month, according to South Korean news reports.
Demilitarized Zone, in the middle of the world’s mostdangerous and fortified border where soldiders for both sides patrol next to one another.
South Korean officials were expected to find ways to accommodate the offer by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, next month. But they also wanted to explore whether North Korea is interested in talks with the United States to ease nuclear tensions.
“I think we should be engaged in these talks with an earnest, sincere manner to give a New Year’s first gift … to the Korean nation,” Ri said. Cho said he also hopes they come up with a “gift” that would satisfy Koreans’ wishes
for better ties, adding, “There is a saying, ‘Well begun is half done.’ I’d like us to have will and patience to resolve (issues) at the negotiation.”
The prospect for the talks was unclear. The two Koreas have a long history of ending negotiations without any agreement.
Ri suggested the talks be open to reporters, so that the people in both Koreas would be able to witness the North’s sincerity about improving ties. But, wary of North Korea’s mastery of propaganda, Cho agreed only to open parts of the talks to pool reporters.
Television footage was relayed to Seoul. The North transmitted the audio of the meeting to its capital, Pyongyang.
On New Year’s, Kim said there is an urgent need to improve inter-Korean ties and that he is willing to send a delegation to the Feb. 9-25 Winter Games in Pyeongchang. He urged Seoul to halt its annual military drills with Washington, which he called a rehearsal for an invasion.
South Korean leader Moon Jae-in welcomed Kim’s outreach and proposed Tuesday’s talks.
South Korean officials said they would focus first on
Olympic cooperation before dealing with tougher issues. South Korea is expected to propose that the two delegations march together behind a ‘‘unified Korea’’ flag during the opening and closing Olympic ceremonies, a symbolic gesture for a peninsula that was divided into the Soviet-backed North and the pro-American South upon liberation from Japan’s colonial rule at the end of World War II.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that he hopes some progress results from Tuesday’s talks. Critics of the meeting suggest Kim may be trying to divide Seoul and Washington in a bid to weaken international pressure and sanctions against the North.