Kim thanks IOC for ‘thawing’ relations with south

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its role in helping bring about a “dramatic thawing season” on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has agreed to participate in the next two Olympics – the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, according to IOC president Thomas Bach, who was in Pyongyang to meet North Korean officials, including Kim.

Kim met Bach on Friday and thanked him for the “special attention” the IOC paid to the North Korean athletes who participated in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in February, the official North Korean news agency, KCNA, reported yesterday.

Kim said that “the once frozen north-south relations greeted a dramatic thawing season” that was “totally attributable to the efforts of the IOC”.

Twenty-two North Korean athletes participated in last month’s Winter Olympics, including 12 on a unified Korean women’s ice hockey team.

The IOC chief ’s visit came amidst a flurry of diplomatic outreach by the typically reclusive east Asian country.

Last week, North Korea’s leader met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Kim’s first known trip outside of North Korea since the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011.

It was also the first time he had met Xi.

Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae In are scheduled to meet in a rare summit on April 27. – DPA/ African News Agency (ANA)