Basketball diplomacy: S. Korea teams head for Pyongyang

SEOUL (AFP) – A high-level South Korean delegation left for Pyongyang Tuesday with dozens of basketball players, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's favorite sport becomes the latest effort at athletic diplomacy between the neighbors.

Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon will lead the delegation of 50 male and female players, in the first visit to Pyongyang by an official from the South since Kim and US President Donald Trump's landmark summit in Singapore last month.

Sporting cooperation helped spark the current diplomatic thaw between the Koreas – who are still technically at war – after the North sent a high-level delegation and athletes to the Winter Olympics in South Korea last February.

Recently the two Koreas announced they would field joint teams in three sports – canoeing, rowing and women's basketball – at the upcoming Asian Games.

Cho told journalists he hoped the games would ''further enhance peace on the Korean Peninsula''.