(4th LD) North Korea offers to send delegation to Paralympics in March

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SEOUL, Jan. 17 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Wednesday offered to also send a delegation to the PyeongChang Paralympics in South Korea, Seoul officials said, as the two sides began talks on details over the North's plan to join the Winter Olympics.

The two sides opened working-level talks at 10 a.m., as scheduled, at the Peace House on the southern side of the shared border village of Panmunjom, according to the Ministry of Unification.

Agenda items include the size of the North's Olympic delegation, transportation, costs, a joint appearance at the opening ceremony and a unified women's ice hockey team, with the opening of the quadrennial games about three weeks away.

"The North informed the South of its broad plan to send a delegation to the Winter Games and the Paralympics," said an official at Seoul's unification ministry.

The Paralympics will be held from March 9-18 in the South after the South hosts the Winter Olympics from Feb. 9-25.

He said that South and North Korea will consult with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) over details on the dispatch of the North's athletes.

The move came as the two Koreas had a ministerial meeting last Tuesday, in which the North agreed to send athletes and art performers to the Olympics. They agreed to discuss relevant details in working-level talks.

The North's leader Kim Jong-un extended a rare offer of rapprochement to Seoul in his New Year's Day speech following a series of nuclear and missile tests last year.

"Inter-Korean relations have been strained for almost 10 years ... in this regard, we hope that (an era of better) ties can open," Jon Jong-su, the North's chief delegate, said at the start of the meeting.

In response, Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung, the South's top delegate, hoped the two Koreas' efforts will make the Olympics a "peace" event and improve their frayed ties.

Before Chun left for the truce village, Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told him to consider the government's pursuit of a breakthrough in efforts to improve inter-Korean ties, which could be conducive to denuclearization.

The outcome of Wednesday's talks is expected to be discussed at the International Olympic Committee's meeting with officials from the Koreas slated for Saturday in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Key points at Wednesday's talks are whether the Koreas can reach an agreement on whether their athletes will march together at the opening ceremony of the Olympics and whether they will field a joint women's hockey team.

The South's government is carefully reviewing ways to greet the North's Olympic delegation in a way that does not violate multilayered sanctions on the communist regime.

Under U.N. sanctions, the South can't offer cash directly to the North when it supports delegates' accommodation expenses.

Sea travel could be in violation of South Korea's unilateral sanctions that ban the entry to South Korea of any vessel that has sailed to North Korea within the past 12 months.

It is highly likely that North Koreans would travel to the South by land. The North asked the South to allow its art troupe to cross the border via Panmunjom for concerts during the Olympics.

Another sticking point is the North's possible inclusion in its delegation of high-ranking officials blacklisted by U.N. sanctions or by Seoul's unilateral punitive actions.

lcd@yna.co.kr

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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