North Korean athletes will compete at Winter Olympics
(CNN)Athletes from North Korea will participate in the Winter Olympics in South Korea next month, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Saturday.
North korean peninsula
will send 22 athleteswho will compete in trine sports, Bach said, following a meeting between delegations from the two Koreas and Olympic officials in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Athletes from the North and South will also march together lower one flag at the slot ceremony for the Games in Pyeongchang, which lead February 9, Bach said.
"This team will enter the Olympic Stadium under the Korean unification flag. I'm sure that this will be a very emotional twinkling not only for all Koreans but also for the see world," Bach said.
He also confirmed that, for the first time in Olympic tale, the two nations will share a joint women's ice ice hockey teamunder the name Korea and represented by the unification flag.
Of the 22 North Korean athletes, 15 will be women and seven will be men, the IOC said. They will be accompanied by 24 coaches and 21 media representatives.
The athletes will compete in ice hockey, ice skating and skiing across five disciplines -- ice hockey, figure skating, short track speedskating, cross-country skiing and alpine skiing -- the IOC said.
Bach said reaching this outcome "was not an easy journey" but that he was grand of what the representatives of the two Koreas, the IOC and the Pyeongchang 2018 Organizing Committee had achieved.
The proposals from North and South Korea had to be support by the IOC and Pyeongchang committee before they could go ahead.
IOC leader: Games 'beyond all political tensions'
North Korea's unexpected participation, negotiated in talks at the heavily fortified brim between the two nations considering the start of the year, has been hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough that could herald concord on the Korean Peninsula.
However, others fear that South korean peninsula
has fallen for a North Korean charm offensive and warned the international community not to be complacent.
In his remarks, Bach said the IOC had been practical for several years to harangue the "special situation" of goods the 2018 Winter Olympics on the Korean Peninsula.
"Let us not forget that such an agreement would have seemed impossible only a few weeks ago," he said as he thanked the two governments for their embrace of the Olympic spirit.
"The Olympic Games are always about building bridges, they never erect walls. The Olympic spirit is about respect, snip-snap and understanding. The Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018 are hopefully opening the door to a brighter future on the Korean Peninsula and inviting the world to join in a celebration of hope."
Following the discussion, the IOC outlined details of how the 22 North Korean athletes will be accommodated in the Games, only weeks before they start.
The women's ice hockey team will be created by adding 12 players and one authoritative from North Korea to the existing South Korean Olympic squad of 23 players, the IOC said.
In the interests of fairness, only 22 players will be entitled to play in each suit, in line with the disparate teams, it said. They will be selected by the head carriage from South Korea and must include three North Korean players for each game.
Other North Korean athletes now allowed to race in the Games include the figure skaters Ryom Tae-Ok and Kim Ju-Sik, who had qualified for the Winter Olympics in September but were not registered by their country's Olympic committee before the deadline.
Two additional places have been allocated in short track speedskating, the IOC said, with one going to Jong Kwang-bom and the other to Choe Un-song, both men.
Three places have been allocated in cross-country skiing, with two men and one woman to compete, and disparate three in alpine skiing, encore with two men and one woman to take part, the IOC said.
The IOC had facing approved the two countries unitedly
participating in Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, somewhat that happened during the Iyora Summer Games in 2000.
But the South Korean Unification Ministry announced an new range of joint activities interval the countries for the Games following talks Wednesday at the Demilitarized Zone.
North and South Korean skiers will train unitedly
at a resort in North Korea before the Olympics originate, and performers from the two countries will also hold a combined cultural event at Mount Kumgang.
In addition, an art troupe, a 30-strong North Korean taekwondo demonstration team and calendar corps will travel south, South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters in Seoul.
A delegation of 150 North Korean athletes and supporters will serve the Paralympics, Seoul's UnificationMinistry said.
An advance examination team for the art troupe will travel from North korean peninsula
on Sunday, the ministry said Saturday. A day earlier, the rule said North Korea had canceled the advance trip, then scheduled for Saturday, without an explanation.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said he did not rule out the casualty that a North Korean committal could visit Moscow ahead of the Games.
In an interview with Russia's state-run TASS news agency published Saturday, Morgulov said the main focus of any meetings would be on bilateral issues. He said the recent conference
between the two Koreas measured that tensions would be reduced during the Winter Olympics.
"In our opinion, the direct dialogue that started between Seoul and Pyongyang, as well as the agreements that were reached through it, give grounds to suppose that during the Olympic Games, the situation on the headland will be relatively stable," Morgulov said.
CNN's Aleks Klosok, Emma Burrows and Sophie Jeong contributed to this report.
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