With N. Korea playing, Asia will be largest ever

With N. Korea playing, Asia will be largest ever

Associated Press, Seoul

North Korea's entry into this year's Asian Games in South Korea will make the quadrennial sports festival the largest ever, organizers said Monday.

As part of an agreement with South Korea on Sunday, North Korea agreed to send a delegation to the 14th Asian Games to be held Sept. 29-Oct. 14 in the southern port city of Busan.

The North's decision is significant because the communist country until now shunned all international sporting events in South Korea, including this year's soccer World Cup. Forty-three Asian nations will take part.

"We're excited. This is the first Asian Games to be attended by all members of the Olympic Council of Asia," said Chung Soon- taek, president of the organizing committee.

Seo Young-gyo, a South Korean negotiator in weekend talks with North Korea, said North Korea's participation in the Busan Asian Games augurs well for overall improvement in inter-Korean relations.

Seo said North Korea is expected to send a delegation of about 200 athletes and officials to the Busan Games to compete in about 20 events, including gymnastics, judo, wrestling and soccer.

Ahead of the Busan Games, North Korea will send a soccer team for a friendly match in Seoul on Sept. 8, Seo said. The two countries held friendly inter-Korean soccer matches in their capitals just after the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing.

In three days of negotiations at the North's Diamond Mountain resort which ended on Sunday, the Koreas also agreed to hold high-level talks in Seoul Aug. 12-14 after a nine-month hiatus.

Topics of next week's talks will include more reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, a plan to reconnect a rail line across the heavily fortified border and joint economic projects in the impoverished North.

The Cabinet-level talks are the first since U.S. President George W. Bush labeled North Korea as part of "an axis of evil" of countries with intentions to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korean ties deteriorated after Bush's remark. Washington and Pyongyang have no formal ties. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against the communist North.

The Koreas were divided in 1945.