Breaking in Korea: Tourism, Sports and Peace take over the Pyeongchang Olympics

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What has happened on Saturday in Pyeongchang may be seen in future history books. What happened shows sports and tourism are industries of peace.

Ongoing in the Republic of Korea is the largest sports event ever undertaken in the country, it’s also the largest travel and tourism event for South Korea with visitors from every corner of the globe. The Olympics are supposed to be a happy event – and the Korean Winter Olympics inย Pyeongchang County, South Korea just was elevated to another level of happiness the world has been waiting for, a possible step for peace and unification between the two Koreas.

Peace, sports, and tourism have many game-changing examples in various parts of the world. Progress was made with cricket in India and Pakistan several times, East and West Germany started a deeper communication on the background of soccer (football) and it is showing in Korea at this very minute with both North and South Korean Olympicย athletes entering the games under one combined flag.

Despite US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatening world peace, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un today invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to Pyongyang and is ready to meet at the earliest possible time, Seoulโ€™s Blue House said on Saturday.

This is a significant development that may just enter a key opportunity for world peace and unification.

It would be the first such summit since 2007, at which then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met with then-DPRK leader Kim Jong Il, and the third since the Korean War.

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Both Kim Yong Nam (left) and Kim Yo Jong (right) signed a guestbook during their visit | Photo: Blue House

According to NK News, the invitation, which was delivered by the DPRK leaderโ€™s sister, Kim Yo Jong, during a visit byย aย high-level ย North Korean delegation toย the Blue House โ€“ the first such visit by DPRK officials in eight years.

โ€œSpecial envoy Kim Yo Jong delivered the personal letter of chairman of the State Affairs Commission Kim Jong Un which includes the willingness to improve the South-North relations,โ€ presidential spokesperson Kim Eui-kyeom said.

โ€œ[She] verbally delivered the intention of chairman of the State Affairs Commission Kim Jong Unโ€™s invitation that โ€˜he is willing to meet President Moon Jae-in at the earliest date possible and request to visit North Korea at your convenience.’โ€

It remains unclear whether the South Korean President has accepted the invitation, however, with Blue House saying that Moon had โ€œexpressed willingness to clinch it by establishing conditions in the future.โ€

Earlier in the year heย expressedย a desire to visit North Korea โ€œat any timeโ€ย subject to conditions that included discussions on the โ€œdenuclearization of the Korean peninsula.โ€

โ€œI am open to any form of meeting, including a summit, if these are necessary to improve inter-Korean relations and resolve the North Korean nuclear issue,โ€ Moon told more than 200 reporters at the Blue House in January.

โ€œBut there should be conditions for the summit to take place, and the results should be guaranteed to some extent,โ€ he added. โ€œIf conditions are met and there are hopes, I am ready to engage in the summit at any time.โ€

The two sides on Saturday also discussed the possibility of talks between Pyongyang and the U.S. in the near future.

โ€œPresident Moon especially requests for the North to actively come forward to dialogue with the U.S. saying โ€˜talks between the North and the U.S. early must be needed for the improvement of the inter-Korean relations,’โ€ย Kim said.

Kim Yong Nam and Kim Yo Jong also signed a guestbook in the Blue House, with the former writing that โ€œItโ€™s the national peopleโ€™s desire to putting efforts for the unity and confidence in aiming unificationโ€ and the latter writingย โ€œI hope that Pyongyang and Seoul get closer to heart of our nation and make the future of unification prosperity earlier.โ€

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One expert said that although the agreement on Saturday will postpone the renewal of tensions between North Korea and the U.S., โ€œthe fundamentals have not changed.โ€

โ€œIt can help to win time,โ€ Andrei Lankov, a Director of NK News and a professor at Kookmin University said. โ€œIt can postpone the revival of highly dangerous tensions, for a few weeks or a few months and this is good.โ€

โ€œBut itโ€™s highly unlikely that anything substantial will be agreed between North Korea and South Korea,โ€ he added.ย โ€œBecause all agreements have to be between North Korea and the United States right now: they are the two parties which are driving the tension.โ€

he delegation, which arrived in South Korea via private jet on Friday, was led by Kim Yong Nam, President of the Presidium of the Supreme Peopleโ€™s Assembly.

He is joined by Kim Yo Jong, who serves as first vice director of the Workersโ€™ Party of Koreaโ€™s (WPK) Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD), as well as Chairman of the National Sports Guidance Committee Choe Hwi andย Chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country (CPRC) Ri Son Gwon.

They will return to the North on Sunday.

In addition to the South Korean President, the North Koreans were met on Saturday byย Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon, Chief of National Security Council (NSC) Chung Eui-yong, and Presidential Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok.

Director of the Southโ€™s National Intelligence Service (NIS) Suh Hoon was also present, though he did not appear on a list of attendees provided by the Blue House to journalists on Friday.

Moon and Kim Yong Nam are set to watch the first match of a joint North-South womenโ€™s ice hockey team against Switzerland on Saturday at Kwandong Hockey Center in Gangneung, Gangwon Province.

The meeting represents the most high-level North Korean delegation visit to the Blue House since August 2009, whenย Kim Ki Nam and the late Kim Yang Gon met then-ROK President Lee Myung-bak during a condolence visit following the death of Kim Dae-jung.

Hwang Pyong So, Choe Ryong Hae and the late Kim Yang Gon visited the South in October 2014, too, to attend the closing ceremony of the 17th Asian Games in Incheon. They did not, however, meet then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

But the presence of Kim Yong Nam, often described as North Koreaโ€™s โ€œnominalโ€ head of state, represents the highest level meeting between a DPRK official and a South Korean head of state in over a decade.

Kim Yo Jong, too, is the most high-level member of North Koreaโ€™s ruling Kim family to visit the South since the Korean War.

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If Moon accepts, the meeting would represent the third such summit in modern Korean history, following Kim Dae-jungโ€™s (left) and Roh Moo-hunโ€™s (right) visits in 2000 and 2007 I Credit: DPRK Today, edited by NK News.

One expert said that while the significance of Fridayโ€™s meeting should not be overstated, it did represent a โ€œmeaningful and welcome development.โ€

โ€œ[It] offers a unique opportunity to probe North Koreaโ€™s intentions with someone who is close to Kim Jong Un,โ€ Mintaro Oba, a former Korea desk officer at the U.S. State Department, toldย NK Newsย ahead of the meeting.

โ€œNorth Korea is playing poker here โ€” theyโ€™re raising the stakes now by amping up expectations for progress, and planning to cash in later when the reputational cost is greatest for President Moon,โ€ he continued. โ€œWe do have to understand what North Korea is doing.โ€

The meeting comes a day after theย Opening Ceremony of the PyeongChang Olympics, which saw athletes from the two Koreas march together under the Korean unification flag for the first time in 11 years.

North Korean hockey player Hwang Chung-gum and South Korean bobsledder Won Yun-jong carried the flag, in a rare symbolic โ€“ but controversial โ€“ display of inter-Korean unity.

In aย speechย ahead of the ceremony, Moon Jae-in said the games would be a โ€œprecious starting point for a step forward toward world peace.โ€

While South Korea has been keen to use the Olympics โ€“ and renewed inter-Korean dialogue in the weeks that preceded it โ€“ to engage with Pyongyang, the U.S. has remained notably less sanguine.

โ€œItโ€™s pretty clear that the White House sees the inter-Korean rapprochement as a bad thing,โ€ former state diplomat Oba said.

โ€œBut their strategy here is woefully misguided. By publicly undercutting South Koreaโ€™s efforts, the United States is advertising disunity in the alliance and setting itself up to take the blame if inter-Korean dialogue ultimately fails.โ€

U.S. officials, however, have in the past week dropped hints that there may be some openness to talks with the North Koreans.

โ€œI have not requested a meeting, but weโ€™ll see what happens,โ€ Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday in Alaska on a stopover on his way to South Korea and Japan.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday told Fox News that he would also not rule out meeting the North Koreans.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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