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Bach: IOC Opened Door for Koreas Summit

Bach: IOC Opened Door for Koreas Summit
Bach: IOC Opened Door for Koreas Summit

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Pyeongchang 2018 “opened the door” for the Friday’s historic summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, which has seen them reaffirm their commitment to “complete denuclearization”.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un have pledged to gradually reduce weapons on both sides and to push toward turning the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953 into a peace treaty this year, Insidethegames.biz reported.

The summit, held in the truce village of Panmunjom, was only the third such meeting between the leaders of the North and South.

North and South Korea marched together under the unification flag at the opening ceremony of Pyeongchang 2018 and, for the first time in Olympic history, competed together as part of a unified Korean women’s ice hockey team.

Bach claimed during February’s IOC session that Pyeongchang 2018 has “brought real hope” to everybody in the Korean Peninsula by encouraging better relations between North and South.

Last November, the UN backed an Olympic truce resolution to be observed during the games. It came amid rising concerns following a series of missile tests by North Korea in the preceding months.

“During all this time, the IOC kept the door open on the sporting side for the participation of North Korean athletes in Pyeongchang,” said Bach, who received a state medal from South Korea for his contribution to the games. “The IOC initiated the ‘Olympic Korean Peninsula Declaration’ in a meeting on January 20, with both governments and the two national Olympic committees”.

 

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