North Korea to send athletes to Olympics
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA >> South Korea says North Korea has agreed to send a delegation to next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.
South Korea’s Vice Unification Minister Chun Haesung said the North made such a statement during rare talks between the rivals at the border today.
He cited the North Korean officials there as saying its delegation would include officials, athletes, cheerleaders and journalists.
Chun said South Korea proposed the two Koreas conduct a joint march during the Game’s opening and closing ceremonies.
He says South Korea also proposed resuming temporary reunions of families separated by war and offering talks designed to reduce animosities in frontline areas.
The Koreas’ first talks in two years were arranged after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un recently made an abrupt push for improved ties with South Korea after a year of elevated tensions with the outside world over his expanding nuclear and missile programs. Critics say Kim may be trying to divide Seoul and Washington in a bid to weaken international pressure and sanctions on the North.
“I think we should be engaged in these talks with an earnest, sincere manner to give a New Year’s first gift — precious results (of the talks) to the Korean nation,” chief North Korean delegate Ri Son Gwon said at the start of the negotiations, according to media footage from the venue. Ri wore a lapel pin with the images of Kim’s father and grandfather, late North Korean rulers Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.
The talks were being held at the village of Panmunjom, the only place on the tense border where North and South Korean soldiers are feet away from each other.