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Inter-Korea Team At PyeongChang Games May Be Difficult, North Korean Exec Says

A veteran North Korean sports administrator visiting South Korea "expressed his misgivings about forming a joint Korean team for next year's Winter Olympics south of the border due to the time crunch," according to Yoo Jee-ho of YONHAP. Chang Ung, North Korea's lone member of the IOC, is in South Korea for the World Taekwondo Championships. Chang "crossed the tense border just days after" South Korea Minister of Culture, Sport & Tourism Do Jong-hwan proposed forming a joint women's hockey team and holding skiing events at North Korea's Masikyrong resort during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Chang has been "peppered with questions about Do's ideas." He spoke of his "doubts about the South Korean minister's suggestions." Chang added, "When we fielded a joint team at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships, there were 22 rounds of inter-Korean talks, and they took five months. That is the reality that we're faced with." As for moving some skiing races to Masikryong, Chang said, "As an Olympic expert, (I think) it's a bit late" (YONHAP, 6/25). REUTERS' Yuna Park reported South Korea President Moon Jae-in, who was a senior official in the liberal former South Korean government of Roh Moo-hyun in the '00s, took office on May 10, winning an election on a "more moderate approach to North Korea and a promise to engage Pyongyang in dialogue." South Korea sports officials said that they "remained receptive to the idea of competing together." Sports Corp. of the Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism Dir General Chun Byong-keuk said, "We are still open to possibilities about forming a joint team" (REUTERS, 6/26).

SANCTION RELIEF: KYODO reported North Korea "appears to be specifying the lifting of sanctions imposed on the rogue state as a condition for the formation of a single, combined team representing the two Koreas" at the 2018 PyeongChang Games, according to local media. Chang told a Channel A TV reporter that "politics lies above sports," according to the Dong a Ilbo newspaper. He added, "(The) political environment should be addressed." His remarks were interpreted as an "effective rejection of Moon's offer," and a suggestion that South Korea's sanctions against the North "should be addressed first if sports exchanges such as formation of a single team can happen." North Korea said that besides sanctions imposed on the nation in recent years over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, Pyongyang also seeks the lifting of those imposed on May 24, 2010. That is when Seoul "cut off most inter-Korean exchanges, including tourism, trade and private aid, after accusing Pyongyang of a torpedo attack on a South Korean navy ship that killed 46 sailors" (KYODO, 6/26).

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