North and South Korea agree to form first JOINT Olympic team and march under unified flag in PyeongChang 2018 opening ceremony
The two countries have put aside their differences to make the gesture after landmark talks near Panmunjom truce village
NORTH and South Korea have agreed to form the first joint Olympic team and march under unified flag at the PyeongChang opening ceremony.
The two countries today announced their decision to form a united women's hockey team for next month's Winter Olympics in the South.
The announcement was made following talks between the two sides at the truce village of Panmunjom – near where a North Korean soldier defected across the border in November.
The two sides also announced their athletes would make a joint entrance carrying a pro-unification flag, according to Yonhap news agency.
A North Korean delegation will visit the South next week to review the facilities at the Games venue, Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korea also agreed to send its athletes to the North's Masikryong ski resort for training ahead of the Games, which run from February 5 to 25.
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North Korea's Olympic delegation, athletes, cheering squad, taekwondo delegation and reporters will travel by land through Kaesong, which lies on the main road from Pyongyang to Seoul.
Nuclear-armed Pyongyang agreed last week to send athletes, high-level officials, performers and others to the Pyeongchang Games, taking place just 50 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula.
Seoul has long sought to proclaim the event a "peace Olympics" in the face of tensions over the North's weapons programme.
Three officials from each side took part in the landmark talks and the results will be discussed by both Koreas with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday.
The IOC must approve extra Olympic slots for the North's athletes after they failed to qualify or missed deadlines to register.
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