Flag diplomacy

South Korea eases North Korean flag ban for Games

BUSAN, South Korea (AP) -- As host of the Asian Games, the city where the South's defenders regrouped during the 1950-53 Korean War has become the first South Korean place to allow display of the North Korean flag.

Amid recent reconciliation efforts, the North is sending a team to an international sports event in the South for the first time. Busan's games organizing committee is allowing the North Korean flag, ordinarily banned in the South, to fly at games' stadiums, the athletes' village and a few other places such as the main media center.

The North Korean flag and anthem also will be part of victory ceremonies if athletes from that communist nation win any of the 420 gold medals at stake.

North Korean troops overran Seoul when they invaded in 1950. The southeastern coastal city of Busan, then spelled Pusan, became South Korea's temporary capital, the site of a large refugee influx and the last-ditch defense line known as the Pusan Perimeter.

The war ended in an armistice in 1953 but no peace treaty has been signed.

The North is sending 184 athletes to compete in 18 sports, including soccer, basketball, judo, shooting, table tennis and gymnastics.

In keeping with the reconciliation efforts, athletes from the two Koreas will march together during the opening and closing ceremonies behind a "unification flag," a blue image of the Korean peninsula on a white background.

"We will make every effort to show off our nation's strength and to show our willingness to reunify our country to people both inside and outside the country," the first North Korean contingent, made up of 159 athletes and officials, said in an arrival statement Monday.

Aside from its delegation of 318 athletes and officials, the North also is sending a 300-member cheering group.

There have been occasional goodwill matches in soccer and other sports between the two Koreas in recent years, but never before has the North agreed to send athletes to a multination sports event in the South, which has been host to competitions including the 1988 Olympics.

"North Korea's participation shows the yearning of the two Koreas for peace and reconciliation," South Korean President Kim Dae-jung told a group of civic activists.

Last week, the two sides opened part of their heavily fortified border area to reconnect rail and road links that were severed just before the Korean War broke out in 1950. The Koreas were divided in 1945.

 

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