North Korea to send athletes, cheer squad to Olympics in South after high-level talks
Updated
North Korea, during rare talks with the South, has said it will send athletes, a cheer squad and a delegation of high-ranking officials to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics next month.
The two Koreas have today been holding their first formal talks in more than two years.
Seoul proposed athletes from the two Koreas march together at the opening ceremony, and engage in other joint activities during the Games, South Korea's vice unification minister Chun Hae-sung told reporters.
The South also proposed inter-Korean military talks to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula, and a reunion of family members in time for February's Lunar New Year holiday.
It also brought up the prospect of holding military talks with North Korea, Mr Chun said.
Regardless of its narrow, primarily sporting agenda, the meeting was closely watched by world leaders eager for any sign of a reduction in tensions on the Korean Peninsula, amid growing concern over North Korea's nuclear weapons development and defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Five senior officials from the North and South met at the three-storey Peace House on the South Korean side of the Panmunjom truce village.
The United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, initially responded coolly to the idea of inter-Korean meetings.
More to come.
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, winter-olympics, unrest-conflict-and-war, korea-democratic-peoples-republic-of, korea-republic-of
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