SEOUL: North and South Korea on Friday agreed to officially inform the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of their intent to co-host the 2032 Summer Olympics as they continued with reconciliation efforts, Associated Press reports. Korean sports officials after meeting at the North Korean border town of Kaesong, also agreed to send a combined team to the world handball championships in January, according to a statement. The rivals vowed to “actively participate” in international sports events hosted by each other and organize more friendly competitions between them.
“The plan is to organize friendly competitions marking meaningful anniversaries between the South and North, for example the first anniversaries of the (April) Inter-Korean summit and the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics,” South Korean Deputy Sports Minister Roh Tae-kang was quoted as saying to AP.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in during a summit in September agreed to pursue a joint bid for the 2032 Olympics and send combined teams to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games and other major sports events. South Korea had gone a step further in reconciling with their neighbours by extending an official invite to them for participating in the 100th edition of its national sports festival in 2019.
However, it remains to be seen if the bid turns out to be a success since it would be extremely difficult to host the Olympics in North Korea under heavy U.S.-led sanctions, which are unlikely to be removed until the North takes concrete steps to relinquish its nuclear arsenal. There’s also declining public support among South Koreans for hosting mega sports events due to worries over huge costs as well.
Diplomatic relations between the two rival neighbouring countries may have improved since the December 1987 plane crash orchestrated by North Korea that killed 115 South Koreans. Yet history makes people in the South skeptic of the North due to its boycotting of the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Summer Olympics, both held in Seoul.
