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Bloomberg
An advance team for North Korea arrived in Seoul on Sunday as Pyongyang reversed a decision to cancel the visit, a day after signing an agreement with the South to march under a unified flag at next month’s Winter Olympics. North and South Korea solidified plans to march together and agreed to compete with a joint wom-en’s ice hockey team in a rare show of unity amid heightened tensions about Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program.
With the games to be held in South Korea, the agreement offers a moment of reconciliation amid mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula involving missile tests and military exercises. North and South Korea will enter the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang under a single flag. The two nations haven’t competed as a team in 27 years.
“I’m sure it will be a very emotional moment, not just for all Koreans, but also for the entire world,†said Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, who hailed the agreement as
being in the “true Olympic spirit of respect and friendship.â€
The two countries will field a unified women’s hockey team, the first time the two sides will compete as one team. North Korea will send 22 athletes, along with 24 coaches and officials, Olympic officials said.An advance team for North Korea’s art troupe, which will be performing in the South during the Olympics, arrived in Seoul on Sunday morning, reversing a decision to cancel the visit. The seven-member team led by Hyon Song Wol, a North Korean pop star and party member, will inspect performance venues in Seoul and Gangneung, and coordinate the art troupe’s concert schedule during the two-day visit.
North Korea also offered to send another delegation to discuss the participation of its athletes, cheering squad and reporters from Jan. 25 to 27, South Korea’s unification ministry said on Sunday. Seoul will send a 12-member team on Jan. 23 to inspect venues in North Korea where the two Koreas plan a joint cultural event and ski training ahead of the Olympics, Yonhap reported.
Bach said Olympic organizers have been working since 2014 to reach an agreement for joint participation at the South Korea games. The IOC meeting addressed the number of athletes and officials from North Korea who would attend, as well as broader decisions on the format of their participation and matters related to protocol such as the flag, anthem, ceremonies and uniforms.