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.