IOC President Bach, S. Korea to discuss joint Korean teams

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IOC President Thomas Bach and South Korean President Moon Jae-In will next week discuss the possibility of joint Korean teams competing at next year's Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games, the German said on Friday.

Seoul's new president - who backs engagement with the DPRK - made the suggestion at the World Taekwondo Federation championships in Muju last weekend.

In South Korea's Pyeongchang next year, Moon said he would like to see again "the glory" of past events "where the South and the North achieved the best-ever results by fielding joint teams". He also suggested that the two countries jointly march in at the Games' opening ceremony, as they did at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

South Korean officials have repeatedly urged Pyongyang - which boycotted the 1988 Seoul Olympics - to take part in Pyeongchang, touting the idea of a "peace Olympics" on the divided Korean Peninsula. The two countries on the peninsula remain technically at war without a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in. /VCG photo

But no DPRK athletes have so far qualified for Pyeongchang, raising the prospect that none will attend in any case.

In Muju, Bach said he appreciated "the message of President Moon to see the Olympic Games as a possibility for dialogue and reconciliation". He would discuss "what could be done in this respect" in talks with Moon on Monday, after the South Korean leader returned from a visit to the United States, he added.

But Pyongyang has already poured cold water on the idea of a unified team, with top sports official Chang Ung, the country's sole IOC member, saying on Thursday it could only happen "when political circumstances are quite favorable".

Tensions are high on the Korean Peninsula over the DPRK's nuclear and missile development.

The Demilitarized Zone, the military border separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea. /VCG photo

But at the World Taekwondo Championships a delegation from the DPRK performed a demonstration, and World Taekwondo chief Choue Chung-won said Friday they had agreed a WT group would reciprocate at the International Taekwondo Federation championships in Pyongyang in September.

Bach would not be drawn on the issue of wild cards to the Olympics for DPRK athletes, saying only that the IOC was supporting some athletes from the country in their attempts to qualify.

The last chance for DPRK athletes to qualify on merit is September's Nebelhorn Trophy figure skating in Oberstdorf, Germany, where two pairs of skaters will seek to do so.

(Source: AFP)