PyeongChang Paralympics Transition Includes North Korea

(ATR) North and South Korea officials are meeting once more to talk about the North’s potential participation in the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Paralympics.

The meeting is scheduled for Feb. 27, says the South Korean Unification Ministry. That's a little more than a week before the Paralympics begin on March 8. According to Yonhap, three North Korean officials have been confirmed for the meeting including two who work with para-sport athlete organizations in North Korea.

South Korea will also send three officials led by inter-Korean exchange director Joo Tae Lee. Topics at the meeting are likely to include what sports the North Korean athletes could compete, the logistics of getting the North Korean athletes to PyeongChang and accommodations for the visitors.

The talks follow the flurry of diplomacy between the two countries that led to 22 North Korean athletes taking part in the Olympics that concluded yesterday in PyeongChang. More than 500 North Koreans traveled to South Korea to witness the Olympics and take part in cultural activities around the Games.

The South Korean government picked up the bill to host the North Korean delegation and could likely do so again for the Paralympics.

The large North Korean delegation for the Olympics was organized after three rounds of talks between the two countries before the International Olympic Committee brokered the official participation details.

Likewise, any proposals submitted after the inter-Korean talks in the Demilitarized Zone on Tuesday will have to be approved by the International Paralympic Committee.

The IPC has already offered two bipartite slots to North Korean athletes to compete in Para Nordic skiing at PyeongChang 2018. Jonghyon Kim and Yuchol Ma both made their international debuts at January’s World Cup in Oberried, Germany, with funding from the Asian Paralympic Committee and the Agitos Foundation.

"Through our Agitos Foundation we brought them to Germany to benefit from a training camp and to compete at a recent World Cup. Working with NPC South Korea and POCOG we have been in close liaison," IPC communications director Craig Spence told ATR earlier this month.

It is expected that North and South Korean athletes would march under a unification flag once again during the Paralympic Opening Ceremony if their participation is confirmed in the coming week.

Written by Kevin Nutley

Forgeneral comments or questions, click here.

25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about theOlympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribersonly.