More N.Korean Inspectors to Visit S.Korea This Week

“The PyeongChang Winter Olympics is turning into “Kim Jong-un’s Pyongyang Olympics” that effectively recognizes its nuclear armaments and propagates the North Korean regime”, the protesters complained, according to local news agency Yonhap.

But after a year of mounting tension, diplomacy focused on sport enabled the International Olympic Committee to announce on Saturday that reclusive North Korea will send 22 athletes to the February 9-25 Games.

Before last week’s meeting at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, the two Koreas had already agreed on a set of momentous compromises, including delegations from both countries marching together at the opening ceremony and the formation of a unified women’s hockey team.

Members of conservative groups in South Korea burnt images of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in the capital Seoul as a mark of protest against Pyongyang’s participation in the upcoming Winter Olympics. South Korea is to send its own advance team to North Korea on Tuesday to review logistics for a joint cultural event at the North’s Diamond Mountain and their non-Olympic skiers’ joint practices at the North’s Masik ski resort, the ministry said.

If this proposal is accepted during discussions with the International Olympic Committee and other bodies, it will become the first unified team formed by the two Koreas to compete at an Olympics.

In his opening remarks, the IOC President said: “Today is a great moment for the Olympic Movement, because the Olympic spirit has brought us all together”.

North Korea’s bid for Winter Olympics glory has been given the go-ahead, with 22 athletes set to compete in three different sports.

Two men – Choe Myong-gwang and Kang Song-il – will participate in slalom and giant slalom Alpine skiing, as will female athlete Kim Ryon-hyang. “This is the Olympic message that will go from PyeongChang to the world”.

The delegation will be led by the art troupe’s leader Hyon Song Wol.

The North’s team will again enter South Korea using the Gyeongui Line Train on the western side of the Peninsula.

The visit has attracted enormous attention from South Korean media and citizens, who gathered Monday around the delegation’s hotel in Gangneung.

It is the first visit by Pyongyang officials to the South for four years, reports say.

It has offered a respite from a months-long standoff over the North’s missile and nuclear programmes, which it conducts in defiance of United Nations sanctions. “It’s a sham, in my view”, Chabot, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said during a joint subcommittee hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

It is part of a sudden reconciliation between the neighbouring countries, which will also see their athletes march together under a “unification flag” before the Olympics.