North Korean Olympic delegation expected to number between 400 and 500 people

Posted on : 2018-01-11 17:07 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Group set to include athletes, cheerleaders, observers, reporters, and performance groups
South Korean Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon (left) exchanges joint press statements with Ri Sonn-gwon
South Korean Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon (left) exchanges joint press statements with Ri Sonn-gwon

On Jan. 10, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said that North Korea is expected to send a massive delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, numbering between 400 and 500 people. The delegation will be divided into groups of high-ranking officials, members of the national Olympic committee, athletes, cheerleaders, observers, reporters and performance artists. Lee made this prediction during a New Year’s meeting for corporate sponsors of the Pyeongchang Olympics, which was held at the Federation of Korean Industries building in the Yeouido district of Seoul.

“I hope that deliberations about a variety of issues, from the North Korean delegation’s route to its method of transport, amenities, and technical matters, and from the athletes’ participation in the games to the question of broadcasting their performance to the North, will go according to plan, which will contribute in a major way not only to the success of the Pyeongchang Olympics, but also to improving the dilemma facing the Korean Peninsula and several challenges facing the entire world,” Lee said.

North Korea unexpectedly offered to send a huge delegation during the high-level inter-Korean talks held at the House of Peace on South Korea’s side of Panmunjeom the previous day, and Lee’s remarks seem to show a determination to engage in the preparations on the assumption that the delegation could contain between 400 and 500 people.

Experts think it was a “decent first step” for North and South Korea to produce a three-point joint press statement and agree to hold further meetings on sports and military matters in their first meeting in over two years, and they argue that inter-Korean relations should be developed even further through follow-up meetings. If the two sides manage to restore trust by racking up small victories in upcoming meetings, it might even be possible to hold another round of high-level talks to coincide with the Pyeongchang Olympics’ opening ceremony.

For now, though, interest is focused on the visit by the North Korean delegation and the working-level meetings to arrange this visit, which were stipulated in the first point of the inter-Korean joint press statement. With not even a month left until the Pyeongchang Olympics’ opening ceremony on Feb. 9, North Korea has raised the stakes by offering to send not only high-ranking officials but also athletes, cheerleaders, artists, observers, a taekwondo demonstration team and reporters.

Considering that the two sides agreed that the North would send an advance team to carry out a preliminary field inspection, it’s critical for a follow-up sports meeting to be held to take care of the practical preparations. Given the tight schedule, the prevailing view is that these deliberations will begin in working-level talks that will be held sometime next week at the latest.

“North Korea needs to come up with a list of people to visit the South, and we will have to be preparing to welcome the North Korean delegation as well. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and other related ministries will be deliberating with North Korea through periodic correspondence,” a South Korean government official said.

Military talks and family reunions pushed back to future negotiating sessions

North and South Korea’s decision to list “military talks to ease tensions” alongside “contact, travel and exchange in various areas” in the second point of the joint press was apparently a pragmatic attempt to look beyond their differences and to include the matters on which they were capable of agreeing. Seoul had originally proposed military talks and Red Cross talks to organize reunions for the divided families, but the North agreed to hold only military talks.

“Regardless of what is addressed during the military talks, the very fact that North Korea agreed to hold them is significant since they can reduce military tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” said Kim Yong-hyeon, a professor at Dongguk University.

In light of the urgency of the matter, experts think it is discouraging that no agreement was reached on the reunions of the divided families. Even so, University of North Korean Studies professor Yang Moo-jin suggested that the matter of the divided families could be implied by the phrase about “contact, travel and exchange in various areas” that appears in the joint press statement. This means that the issue could be brought up again as North and South Korea gradually develop trust.

Restoring inter-Korean relations after a decade of decline

North and South Korea’s agreement in the third point of the joint press statement to respect previous inter-Korean statements and to resolve all matters related to inter-Korean relations as the parties directly concerned with Korean Peninsular issues marks the beginning of an effort to completely restore inter-Korean relations, which were stretched to the breaking point during the administrations of former presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.

“Matters on which North and South Korea disagree were apparently delayed until future talks, and for now a broad agreement was reached focusing on the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Inter-Korean relations have entered the recovery phase through the restoration of the Panmunjeom communications channel and the military hotline on the West Sea, and we need to continue normalizing and institutionalizing inter-Korean relations by reviving abandoned inter-Korean agreements,” said Cho Seong-ryeol, chief of research for the Institute for National Security Strategy.

By Jung In-hwan and Noh Ji-won, staff reporters

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