North Korea's participation in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is a marked contrast to its increasingly isolated diplomatic position, with new UN Security Council resolutions imposed on it only in December over its banned nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
The North has 12 skaters on the unified women's ice hockey team -- alongside 23 Southerners -- and 10 other athletes taking part: three cross-country skiers, three alpine skiers, two short-track speed skaters and two pairs skaters, Ryom Tae-Ok and Kim Ju-Sik, who are the only competitors to have met the Olympic qualifying standards.
Sporting relations between the two halves of the divided Korean peninsula, which remain technically at war after the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, have ebbed and flowed over the years.
Here are highlights and lowlights of the two rivals' sporting relationship.
- 1988: Seoul Olympics boycott -
North Korea stayed away from the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, even as the Soviet bloc states and China took part despite not having diplomatic ties with the South.
A handful of the North's allies -- notably Fidel Castro's Cuba -- also stayed away, but it was the first time in three summer Olympics that the Games had not been hit by a major boycott, after Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984.
- 1991: Unified teams -
Only two years after the Seoul Games, a rapid improvement in ties saw North and South play football friendlies in Pyongyang and Seoul in quick succession, with both sides using the same unification flag, a blue silhouette of the Korean peninsula on a white background.
In 1991 they sent a unified team to the world table tennis championships in Japan -- the first pan-Korean squad to compete internationally since the two officially split in 1948.
They won the women's team event gold, defeating powerhouse China, with two players from either side.
Later the same year, the two Koreas competed as a unified team in the FIFA World Youth Championship in Portugal, reaching the quarter-finals, where they met the might of Brazil and were trounced 5-1.
- 2000s: Joint marches
South Korea's first liberal president for decades, Kim Dae-Jung, took office in 1998 and embraced a "Sunshine Policy" towards the North.
Following a landmark summit between North and South in 2000, the two Koreas marched together behind a unification flag at the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics in Sydney, although they competed separately, with their own uniforms, emblems and anthems.
The same arrangements applied for Athens in 2004 and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.
Joint marches also took place at events hosted by the South, such as the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, when the North also sent a cheerleading squad of 280 young female supporters, carefully screened for their family backgrounds and looks, who became a media sensation.
Similar delegations were despatched for the 2003 Universiade in Daegu and the 2005 Asian Athletics Championships in Incheon -- when the cheerleaders included Ri Sol-Ju, who later married the North's current leader Kim Jong-Un.
The North carried out its first nuclear test the following year.
- 2010s: Opposing sides
After Lee Myung-Bak's conservative South Korean government took office in 2008, inter-Korean ties entered a deep freeze and joint marches came to an end, as did visits by cheerleading squads from the North.
But Pyongyang continued to send teams to sporting events in the South, including the 2008 Asian Judo Championships, the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, and a women's ice hockey tournament last year in Gangneung, at one of the Winter Olympics venues.
North Korea also played qualifying matches for the football World Cup in the South in 2008 and 2009, but the corresponding matches in the North were moved to China as Pyongyang refused to allow the South's flag to be flown and anthem played on its territory.
But it relented for an AFC women's Asian Cup preliminary group game last year.
US ally Jordan cuts ties with NKoreaAmman (AFP) Feb 1, 2018
US ally Jordan has cut diplomatic ties with North Korea "in line with the policies of its allies", a government source said on Thursday. The decision comes months after similar moves by Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who are also key regional allies of the United States. In November, the US called on all countries to cut off trade and diplomatic ties with North Korea after i ... read more
Related Links
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com
Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com
All about missiles at SpaceWar.com
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com
| Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution. |
||
| SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Oncecredit card or paypal |
 |
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthlypaypal only |
from Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense http://ift.tt/2EH6ZYG
via space News
No comments: