Not all South Koreans keen on Olympics deal
Plans to march with the North under one flag and field a joint team drive protests.
SEOUL — International Olympics officials may have blessed North Korea’s role in the upcoming Winter Games, but not everyone in host nation South Korea supports Pyongyang coming to Pyeongchang.
Discontent has grown in South Korea in recent days over plans to include North Korea in high-profile roles during next month’s Games — complaints that prompted protesters on Monday to burn a North Korean f lag and an image of the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, in public.
“We oppose!” the group of a few hundred people chanted Monday outside Seoul’s central train station. “We oppose!”
The protest is a vocal example of what appears to be a growing backlash in the South, prompting President Moon Jae-in to urge public support for the Olympics deal and its promise of decreased tensions on the peninsula.
The president, a former special forces soldier for South Korea whose parents fled North Korea during the war, urged his nation to support the “miraculously earned” chance for cooperation between the two countries.
“Such dialogue came dramatically while the possibility of war again loomed,” he said Monday. “But the current condition is so fragile that no one can be optimistic about how long the dialogue will last.”
Moon is a progressive who came to office seeking better relations with the North. But he has walked a fine line in recent weeks, seeking a deal with the North while also maintaining a tough denuclearization stance in solidarity with the United States, a key ally.
Tension persists in part because of the North’s illicit and aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in recent years and its long history of reverting to a confrontational posture after obtaining concessions through inter-Korean dialogue.
The South Korean opposition’s complaints have centered on plans for the two nations — divided for more than six decades after the Korean War — to march together under a neutral unification flag and to field a joint women’s hockey team.
The North, which hasn’t attended a Winter Olympics since 2010, had no official role in the 2018 Games before this month. But a public overture by Kim on New Year’s Day and a receptive response by Moon led to successful negotiations in recent weeks.
The North is now expected to send dozens of athletes, coaches and journalists to the Games, which begin Feb. 9 in the ski village of Pyeongchang, about 100 miles east of Seoul. The International Olympic Committee took what it said was an “extraordinary” step of adding competition spots for the North over the weekend.
North Korea is expected to compete in three sports: hockey, skiing and skating.