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North, South Korea may create single team for Olympics

North and South Korea have agreed in principle to form unified teams for the 2006 Asian Games and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and will meet next month to work out the details.

The two sides have long talked about combining sports forces, but a joint statement issued Tuesday marked a formal step toward the goal.

The three-paragraph statement was issued after a three-hour meeting between North and South Korean Olympic officials in the Chinese territory of Macau, where their teams were competing in the East Asian Games.

Kim Sang-woo, secretary general of the Korean Olympic Committee, told The Associated Press the two sides agreed to meet Dec. 7 in the North's border city of Kaesong to talk about how to select and train the athletes. Each side will be represented by a vice chairman of its national Olympic committee.

However, neither side signed Tuesday's document, and previous talk about merging the teams faded amid deep mutual distrust.

Athletes from the two Koreas marched together at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 and 2004 Olympics and at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, but they competed separately.

The Koreas have been divided since 1945, and the two sides fought a three-year war in the 1950s.

Kim said there was optimism that merging the teams would be possible because of a thawing in relations since North Korean leader Kim Jong Il met former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in an unprecedented summit in 2000.

"The atmosphere and the building in confidence and trust have been taken to a significant level, and that is why the North feels it can trust the South to provide a very fair and acceptable agreement, which is the same case for South Korea as well," Kim said.

North Korea initiated Tuesday's meeting, he said.
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