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| South Korean head delegate Jeon Choong-ryul, right, shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart Won Kil-u ahead of a meeting on inter-Korean sports exchange at the southern side of Panmunjeom, Monday. The Koreas agreed to make a joint entrance and field joint teams at the Asian Games in August, and to hold an inter-Korean basketball competition in July. / Yonhap |
By Kim Bo-eun
South and North Korea agreed to make a joint entrance under a flag symbolizing a unified Korea at the Asian Games to be held in Indonesia in August, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Monday.
The Koreas also decided to hold an inter-Korean basketball competition in Pyongyang between July 3 and 6, and another in Seoul in the fall.
The agreements on sports sector exchanges were made during inter-Korean talks at the truce village of Panmunjeom.
Joint participation in the Asian Games this year was among the agreements in the Panmunjeom Declaration reached at the April 27 inter-Korean summit.
According to the ministry, athletes from the two Koreas will march together at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games under the "unification flag," and Arirang, a Korean folk song, will be played instead of the national anthems of the North and the South when they enter. It will be the 11th joint entrance at an international sports event.
The Koreas will also field joint teams for several events.
The delegations, led by the South's Korean Sport and Olympics Committee Secretary General Jeon Choong-ryul and the North's Vice Sports Minister Won Kil-u, also discussed the North's participation in the ISSF World Shooting Championship in August in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province.
High-level officials of the North and South agreed in a meeting June 1 to hold talks on sports cooperation.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, South Korean officials will visit the North's city of Gaeseong for preparations to establish a joint contact office there to facilitate inter-Korean communication and exchanges _ another agreement in the Panmunjeom Declaration. They are aiming to open the office this month.
On Friday, the Koreas will hold Red Cross talks at Mount Geumgang to discuss resuming reunions of family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. The last reunion took place in October 2015.
The Panmunjeom Declaration states the Koreas seek for reunions to take place on Aug. 15, which marks Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation. Resuming the reunions is a pressing issue because the remaining people with direct blood connections are now in their 80s or older.
The Red Cross talks may also address other humanitarian issues, including the release of six South Koreans detained in the North and the possible repatriation of North Korean restaurant workers who were known to have defected to the South but may have been kidnapped.
Next week, inter-Korean talks are expected to be held on rail and road connections between the North and South and reforestation in the North.
The initiatives are expected to begin with studies, as official economic cooperation is expected to take time due to multiple sanctions on North Korea.
