hankyoreh

North Korea's only member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Saturday he hopes that Pyeongchang will host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, and that this weekend's North Korean taekwondo demonstration will help unify the two Koreas.

"This event (taekwondo demonstration) will help the two world governing bodies of taekwondo merge, and will increase signs to realize the unification of the two Koreas," said Chang Ung, the North Korean IOC member, in a news conference held in Hoban Gymnasium in Chuncheon. "There cannot be two world governing bodies of a sport that have the same root in one Korean Peninsula."

"I hope Pyeongchang brings the 2014 Winter Olympic Games to this country," he added.

Pyeongchang, a city in Gangwon Province, is competing with two other candidate cities to host the Olympiad. The host city will be determined at an IOC general assembly meeting in Guatemala on July 4.

"As you know, the IOC has an ethics commission and an ethics code, so I am sorry that I can't say anything regarding the other candidate cities," said Chang.

"In my personal opinion, Pyeongchang has been working well with a well-organized committee, and their activities were systematic," he said. "My advice to the three candidate cities will be to do your best or utmost until the last minute," he added.

Asked on details of North Korea's detailed plan to help Pyeongchang, he said, "My letter to the Pyeongchang committee is in the bid file submitted by Pyeongchang. That letter fully explained my stance."

Kim Jin-sun, the governor of Gangwon Province, also attended the news conference and explained that in the letter, Mun Jae-duk, president of North Korean Olympic Committee, expressed his full support for Pyeongchang's bid, saying that if Pyeongchang wins the bid, they will consider a joint training session for athletes from the two Koreas.

Regarding the sports talks by the two Koreas to field single team for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games next year, Chang said, "I live in Vienna, Switzerland, so I don't know the details of the talks, but I heard that the talks have gone well up until now."

Chang is expected to discuss a possible merger of the South Korean and North Korean-led world governing bodies of Korea's traditional martial art, taekwondo.

Concurrently head of the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF), Chang arrived on a direct flight from the North's capital, Pyongyang, on Friday morning and then traveled to Chuncheon, 85 kilometers east of Seoul, for a North Korean taekwondo demonstration.

The demonstration by the 30-member North Korean taekwondo team was held in Hoban Gymnasium. Four news reporters from North Korea covered the event, but declined to give comments.

This is Chang's first visit to South Korea since he attended the Daegu Universiade in August 2003.

Meanwhile, Chang will also visit the headquarters of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), run by South Korean officials, in southern Seoul at noon on Sunday for a meeting with Choue Chung-won, head of the federation.

Chang and Choue signed an agreement in Doha, Qatar in December to form a body to discuss the administrative and technical mergers of the two groups. Officials from the two world governing bodies held the first meeting of the coordinating commission in Beijing, China, for two days from March 31.

The WTF was inaugurated in Seoul in 1973 and became an official umbrella organization of the IOC with a membership of 179 national associations, while the ITF was launched seven years earlier, also in the South Korean capital.

ITF founder Choi Hong-hi later immigrated to Canada and named Chang as his successor in 2002.

Chang and the taekwondo delegation are to return home on Monday by direct flight from Seoul to Pyongyang.
Chuncheon, South Korea, April 7 (Yonhap News)