North Korea agrees to send athletes to South Korea Olympics

nbcnews.com: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea will send a delegation of officials and athletes to next month's Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, it was announced Tuesday after the first high-level talks between the countries in more than two years.

The two nations also agreed to hold military talks aimed at reducing animosity along their tense border and to "actively cooperate" in the Games, which open on Feb. 9 in PyeongChang some 50 miles from the boundary.

The sensitive discussions, held in Panmunjom, in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), were closed to outside observers.

“We have high expectations that the Olympics turn out to be a peace festival with special guests from the North," said South Korea’s unification minister, Cho Myoung-gyon.

His North Korean counterpart, Ri Son Gwon, added that he was optimistic about the talks as long as their “innocent intention and cooperation are united.”

In the past, talks have not gone smoothly.

Duyeon Kim, a visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum, a think tank in Seoul, said previous summits were plagued by posturing and “nitpicking.”

“It’s clear that the North is focused on the atmospherics and the PR aspects of these talks this time,” she said. “The big question will be what actions North Korea shows after the Winter Olympics. How will Kim Jong Un prove he is serious about inter-Korean relations?”

During the latest talks, North Korea brought up sending a large entourage — including a high-level delegation, a performing arts group, athletes, cheerleading teams, media and others — to the Games, said South Korean Deputy Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung.

The South raised other possible areas of cooperation, such as reuniting families separated by the Korean War in 1950-53 and ways to ease military tensions, Chun added.

The discussions came afer the U.S. and South Korea on Thursday announced the suspension of military exercises during the Games.

"When the ancient Greeks used to hold the Olympics, they held a truce," said Moon Chung-in, a special adviser on foreign affairs and national security to South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in. "We are living in a civilized world. It is the logical choice." ContinueReading