BEIJING: North Korea’s Olympic representative said Saturday the reclusive nation was “likely to participate” in next month’s Winter Games in South Korea, Kyodo news agency reported, in the latest sign of a thaw in Korean tensions.
The comments by Chang Ung, Pyongyang’s representative to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), come a day after the North and South agreed to hold rare talks next week and hours after Seoul and Washington announced they would postpone joint military exercises that rile North Korea.
The Japanese news agency said Chang made the brief comment to reporters during a stopover at Beijing’s international airport.
Kyodo said Chang was believed to be traveling to Switzerland, where the IOC is based.
It quoted unnamed sources saying the trip may be aimed at meeting with the IOC to discuss the North’s potential participation in the Games at Pyeongchang.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said in a new year speech that his country wished success for the Olympics, to be held from February 9-25, and would consider sending a delegation.
The two Koreas have been separated by the world’s most heavily militarised border since the Korean War ended in a stalemate in 1953.
Seoul and organizers are keen for the North to take part in the Games to help ease worsening tensions on the Korean peninsula stemming from Kim’s confrontation with the world over his country’s nuclear and missile programs.
In recent months, North Korea has held multiple missile launches and its sixth and most powerful nuclear test — purportedly of a hydrogen bomb — in violation of UN resolutions banning such activity by the reclusive nation.
The region has been further rattled by tit-for-tat threats and insults between Kim and US President Donald Trump.
But the new year has witnessed a marked softening of tone on both sides.
Seoul has reacted warmly to Kim’s Olympic overture and the two Koreas this past week restored a cross-border hotline that had been shut down since 2016 and agreed to hold high-level talks next week — the first since 2015.
Those talks are expected to focus on matters including the North’s Olympic participation.
Also in recent days, the United States and South Korea agreed to delay their joint military exercises until after the Olympics, apparently to ease the situation with Pyongyang.
The regular joint drills have been criticized by some as adding to regional tensions, particularly by Beijing and Moscow who have both called for them to be suspended.
North Korea ‘likely’ to join Winter Games, says IOC official
North Korea ‘likely’ to join Winter Games, says IOC official
Ex-heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua injured in Nigeria highway crash
- Pictures circulating online showed a shirtless Joshua — a British national of Nigerian heritage — surrounded by what appeared to be broken window glass
LAGOS: Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua suffered “minor injuries” in a fatal car accident that killed two people Monday, Nigerian police said.
Pictures circulating online showed a shirtless Joshua — a British national of Nigerian heritage — surrounded by what appeared to be broken window glass on the seats around him.
The circumstances around the wreck are “currently being investigated,” said police in Ogun state, just north of Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos, which throngs with visitors from across the country and diaspora each December.
Joshua “was seated in the rear of the vehicle, sustained minor injuries and (is) receiving medical attention,” the police statement said.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn told Daily Mail Sport he was on a family holiday and “awoke to the news of this incident.”
“We are trying to contact Anthony and in the meantime we don’t want to speculate on how he is but thankfully he appears OK from what I have seen in the images,” he said.
Police said the wreck, in which two people in Joshua’s car were killed, occurred around 11:00 am, in the town of Makun, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps said in a statement that the Lexus Joshua was riding in “was suspected to be traveling beyond the legally prescribed speed limit on the corridor, lost control during an overtaking maneuver and crashed into a stationary truck... by the side of the road.”
Witness Adeniyi Orojo told Punch news Joshua was traveling in a two-vehicle convoy, and was seated behind his driver.
“The passenger beside the driver and the person beside Joshua died on the spot,” he said.
The police gave the same toll, saying the two killed were “passengers in the vehicle” who “lost their lives at the scene.”
The names of the victims have not been released but a spokesman for the Ogun state governor said preliminary reports indicated they were “two male foreign nationals.”
Earlier this month Joshua knocked out YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a Netflix-backed bout in Miami.
The former Olympic champion Joshua has since been linked with a fight against compatriot and fellow former world champion Tyson Fury.
Joshua’s last fight prior to the match with Paul was a fifth round knockout loss to fellow Briton Daniel Dubois in September last year.
