North Korea is to take part in the next two Olympic Games in Japan and China, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang yesterday.
Bach traveled to Pyongyang on Thursday in a visit that comes after North Korea’s participation in the Pyeongchang Winter Games helped ease tensions over the Korean Peninsula.
Speaking to reporters at Beijing airport upon his return, Bach said North Korea would participate in the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
Photo: EPA-EFE/KCNA
“This commitment was fully supported by the supreme leader of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] in a very open and fruitful discussion I had with him yesterday,” Bach said.
“The IOC will make a proposal for a potential joint march or potential other joint activities for Tokyo and then maybe also for Beijing at the appropriate time,” he added.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Bach told Kim the trip was to “express the most heartfelt thanks” to North Korea’s leader for helping make February’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics a Games that were “symbolic of peace.”
Athletes from North and South Korea marched under a unified peninsula flag at the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, and the two Koreas have seen a significant thaw in tensions since.
KCNA said Kim expressed thanks for the IOC’s support and for cooperating with North Korea “regardless of any political climate and conditions.”
He said he hoped that the IOC’s relationship with the North’s Olympic Committee would continue to develop favorably and expected cooperation in developing and improving sports in North Korea, the report added.
An official from the South Korean Unification Ministry said it was aware of the KCNA’s report, but declined to comment further.
Bach had accepted North Korea’s invitation in February, and told Reuters at the time that he saw sports as a way to reduce political tensions.
After Kim made a surprise trip this week to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), his engagement with the international community has sparked speculation that he might try to meet other leaders ahead of summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump.
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