N. Korea says will not attend Olympics over Covid-19 fears

North Korea will not attend this year’s Tokyo Olympics because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Pyongyang’s Sports Ministry said, blowing the final whistle on Seoul’s hopes of using the Games to restart talks with its nucleararmed neighbour.

The North’s participation in the last Winter Games, hosted by the South in Pyeongchang, was a key catalyst in the diplomatic rapprochement of 2018.

Leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong attended as his envoy in a blaze of publicity, and the South’s President Moon Jae-in seized the opportunity to broker talks between Pyongyang and Washington that led to a series of high-profile meetings between Kim and then United States president Donald Trump.

But Pyongyang’s announcement puts an end to Seoul’s hopes of using the postponed Tokyo Games, due to begin in July, to kick off a reset in the now deadlocked talks process.

North Korea’s Olympic Committee “decided not to participate in the 32nd Olympic Games in order to protect players from the world public health crisis caused by Covid-19”, said the Sports in the DPR Korea website, run by the Sports Ministry.

Pyongyang is more isolated than ever after imposing a strict border closure more than a year ago in an effort to protect itself from the virus that first emerged in neighbouring China and went on to sweep the world.

The North insists it has had no coronavirus cases, although experts doubt the assertion, but the lockdown has exacerbated the economic pain from multiple international sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons programmes.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry said it was “sorry that the Covid19 situation” had prevented the Games from serving as “an opportunity to advance peace on the Korean peninsula”.