President Moon Urges "Inter-Korean Sports Exchange"... Could It Be a Turning Point Like Pyeongchang?

"Continue Discussions on Hosting the 2032 Seoul-Pyongyang Summer Olympics and the Tokyo Olympics Unified Team"

President Moon Jae-in is delivering the New Year's address at the Blue House on the 7th. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] President Moon Jae-in has urged for the continuation of inter-Korean sports exchanges through this year's Tokyo Summer Olympics and international sports events, and it appears that our government and the sports community will accelerate efforts to make this happen.

In his New Year's address on the 7th outlining the direction of state affairs this year, President Moon stated, "The joint hosting of the 2032 Olympics by South and North Korea will showcase to the world that we are one Korean people and will be a golden opportunity for us to leap forward together." He added, "This is an agreement between the South and North Korean leaders and a promise to the international community, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to which we have already conveyed our intention to co-host." He further said, "I hope we can unite our efforts through continuous sports exchanges to ensure the joint hosting of the Olympics is realized," and "I look forward to North Korea sending skilled athletes to the 1st East Asian Weightlifting Championships and the World Table Tennis Championships, both hosted in our country this year, and negotiations for joint entrance and unified teams at the Tokyo Olympics should continue."

South and North Korea achieved joint entrance at the opening and closing ceremonies and formed a unified women's ice hockey team during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which marked North Korea's participation. Sports exchanges continued thereafter, leading to the formation of unified teams in some events at the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games in August of the same year. In February last year, delegations from both Koreas met with IOC President Thomas Bach in Lausanne, Switzerland, agreeing to form unified teams in four sports?women's basketball, women's hockey, judo (mixed team event), and rowing?at the Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan, in July, and announced plans for joint training. At this meeting, they also conveyed their intention to jointly bid for the 2032 Summer Olympics in Seoul and Pyongyang.

However, following the North Korea?United States summits ending without results, inter-Korean relations froze again, and sports exchanges were completely cut off. President Moon appears to have mentioned sports exchanges as one of the solutions to break the deadlock in inter-Korean relations, just as the Pyeongchang Olympics marked a turning point.

Accordingly, the government plans to appeal for support from the international sports community to resume inter-Korean sports exchanges. They intend to make this appeal at the upcoming IOC General Assembly held in Lausanne, Switzerland, from the 9th to the 12th. The host city for the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics, for which South Korea has applied, will be decided at this assembly, and our delegation, including Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Park Yang-woo and Korea Sports Council President Lee Ki-heung, will attend. A Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism official said, "The delegation plans to meet with President Bach on-site to convey South Korea's position on joint participation in the Tokyo Olympics and the joint bid for the 2032 Seoul-Pyongyang Summer Olympics."

The Korea Sports Council also stated, "Sports exchanges with North Korea can change rapidly at any time, so we must always be prepared," adding, "Although there has been no response from North Korea yet, we have proposed the idea of establishing a liaison office in Switzerland to discuss current issues." Additionally, the Korea Weightlifting Federation and the Korea Table Tennis Association have each requested North Korea's participation in the 1st East Asian International Weightlifting Championships held in Seoul from February 27 to March 3, and the World Table Tennis Championships held in Busan from March 22 to 29, respectively.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.