IOC to urge Koreas to form unified ’08 Games team

By Karolos Grohmann

ATHENS (Reuters) – The International Olympic Committee said
on Tuesday it would hold talks with South and North Korean
Olympic Committee officials next week in a bid form a unified
team in time for the 2008 Beijing Games.

“President Jacques Rogge is meeting the National Olympic
Committees next week,” an IOC official said. “We can confirm
that.”

The official said Rogge would meet both in Lausanne.

A South Korean Olympic Committee official earlier said
Rogge would meet Kim Jung-kil, president of the country’s
Olympic Committee on September 5.

He said Rogge had also invited North Korea to attend but
there has been no confirmation of the meeting by North Korea.

North Korea delayed the discussions on a joint team because
of the diplomatic tension over its test-firing of missiles in
July.

The two sides have also failed to agree on how the unified
team should be selected with Pyongyang saying there should be
equal representation and Seoul insisting the selection should
be based on merit.

The Olympic committees for the two Koreas had been
scheduled to hold their next round of talks on forming their
first joint team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on July 20 and
21.

However North Korean delegates quit a joint-ministerial
meeting in mid-July in Pusan, South Korea after Seoul officials
pressed the North to explain why it had defied international
warnings and test-fired seven missiles on July 5.

North Korea said Seoul would “pay a price” for souring
inter-Korean relations after the cabinet-level talks broke
down.

Still technically at war after the 1950-53 war ended
without a peace treaty, the two Koreas first considered
competing as a joint team at the 1964 Tokyo Games. But years of
acrimony and military tension have kept it as just an idea.

The two Koreas have marched together at Olympic Games, most
recently at this year’s Winter Games in Turin, but competed as
separate teams.