Push for reunification
Pyongyang urges all Koreans in rare announcement as ice hockey players begin Olympics training
A delegation of North Korean officials and ice hockey players yesterday crossed the heavily guarded border into South Korea for joint Olympics training, as Pyongyang called for all Koreans to seek unification of the two nations.
The group included 12 North Korean players who will form a combined women's ice hockey team with their southern counterparts at next month's Winter Olympics in the South Korean mountain resort of Pyeongchang.
After going through South Korean checkpoints at the border, the team travelled to a national training centre in Jincheon, 90 km (56 miles) south of Seoul.
Stepping off a bus, the athletes ignored questions as they were mobbed by throngs of media.
The athletes were met in Jincheon with flowers from their South Korean counterparts, as well as head coach Sarah Murray, who previously had called the government's decision to form a joint team a "tough situation."
North Korea yesterday sent a rare announcement addressed to "all Koreans at home and abroad", saying they should make a "breakthrough" for unification without the help of other countries, its state media said.
All Koreans should "promote contact, travel, cooperation between North and South Korea" while adding Pyongyang will "smash" all challenges against reunification of the Korean peninsula.
North and South Korea remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. Tensions escalated dramatically last year as the regime of Kim Jong Un stepped up its programme aimed at developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the United States.
In a separate statement yesterday, North Korea advertised a new "large scale" tourist project in coastal Kangwon province, the same area where South Korean officials have agreed to hold joint athletic and cultural events around the Olympics.
Meanwhile, Washington on Wednesday imposed fresh sanctions on nine entities, 16 people and six North Korean ships it accuses of helping the North's weapons programmes. It also urged China and Russia, North Korea's main allies, to expel North Koreans raising funds for the programmes.
China, the main source of North Korea's fuel, said yesterday it had exported no oil products to North Korea in December except for a tiny cargo of jet fuel, the latest sign that Beijing has kept up pressure on its isolated neighbour.
Military tension on the Korean peninsula was a "fundamental obstacle" for the improvement of inter-Korean relations and unification, the North's official news agency said in its statement.