Negotiators from South and North Korea on Thursday launched talks on the prospect of forming of a unified team for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, officials said.
The delegations, led by sports and government officials, were holding the one-day discussions in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, Korea Olympic Committee spokesperson Chun Moon-Young said.
”The South’s team will return from the talks later today to announce the results on the negotiations,” he said.
The talks followed a call from International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge earlier this month for the leaders of the two Koreas to cooperate to field a joint team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
During the general assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees held in Seoul in April, Rogge urged the two Koreas to reach agreement on the issue by the end of August.
Both Koreas, still technically at war since a civil war five decades ago, have tried to warm ties through exchanges in various fields, including sports, since their leaders held a peace summit in 2000.
They have never fielded a unified team to the Olympics, but they did send joint teams to the World Table Tennis Championships and an international youth football competition, both in 1991.
They also have marched together in Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, including Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004, in a symbolic display of unity.
The Korean peninsula has been divided into the capitalist South and the communist North since 1948, and the two fought the 1950 to 1953 Korean War. — AFP
