[앵커]
North Korea has officially announced that it will not participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics, which will start next month.
As the COVID-19 situation is the biggest cause, it seems that not only North Korean players’ participation in individual qualifications but also important personal visits to Beijing have been canceled.
Connect with reporters. Reporter Han Yeon-hee!
How did North Korea’s official position come regarding?
[기자]
Yes, the Korean Central News Agency reported today.
The North Korean Olympic Committee sent a letter to the Chinese Olympic Committee and others to officially notify them of their absence from the Beijing Winter Olympics, which will begin next month.
The letter was delivered by the North Korean ambassador to China to meet an official from the National Sports Administration of China on the day that North Korea fired a hypersonic missile (the 5th).
“Due to the maneuvers of hostile forces and the global pandemic, we have been unable to participate in the Olympic Games,” the North Korean side said in a letter.
Since North Korea did not participate in the Tokyo Olympics last year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended the qualifications of the North Korean Olympic Committee until the end of this year.
Therefore, it was impossible for North Korea to officially participate in the Beijing Olympics as a nation, and athletes were able to participate in their individual qualifications.
It is the same way that Russia failed to participate in the last Tokyo Olympics as a nation, and Russian athletes participated as members of the ‘Russia Olympic Committee’ instead of ‘Russia’.
However, as North Korea mentioned the “global pandemic epidemic situation” as the reason for not attending, it is interpreted to mean that it will also prevent North Korean players from participating in individual qualifications.
This is because North Korea has already completely closed its borders for two years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and thoroughly blocked the departure of North Koreans.
However, North Korea made clear its will to maintain friendly relations with China, emphasizing that the absence of the Olympics was not voluntary, but because of the US hostile policy and unavoidable circumstances such as COVID-19.
With North Korea’s official absence from participation, the possibility of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to Beijing during the Beijing Olympics has completely disappeared.
In addition, the South Korean government’s plan to meet face-to-face with officials from North and South Korea and China to discuss issues of peace on the Korean Peninsula, such as the declaration of an end to the war and the denuclearization of North Korea, has also been disrupted.
Until now, this is YTN Han Yeon-hee from the Ministry of Unification.
YTN Han Yeon-hee (harshwinter@ytn.co.kr)
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