Korean hockey players arrive for joint Olympics practice as N.Korea calls for unity

A delegation of North Korean officials and ice hockey players crossed the heavily guarded border into South Korea on Thursday for joint Olympics training, as Pyongyang called for all Koreans to seek unification of the two nations. The delegation included 12 North Korean players who will form a combined women’s ice hockey team with their southern counterparts at next month’s Winter Olympics in the South Korean mountain resort of Pyeongchang. Under an agreement worked out during the first official talks between the two Koreas in two years, the joint team will wear unity jerseys and march under a unified peninsula flag at the Games’ opening ceremony on February 9. Earlier on Thursday, North Korea sent a rare announcement addressed to “all Koreans at home and abroad”, saying they should make a “breakthrough” for unification without the help of other countries, its state media said. All Koreans should “promote contact, travel, cooperation between North and South Korea” while adding Pyongyang will “smash” all challenges against reunification of the Korean peninsula. The announcement, issued after a joint meeting of government and political parties, added Koreans should try to ease military tensions and create a peaceful climate on the Korean peninsula. North and South Korea remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. Tensions escalated dramatically last year as the regime of Kim Jong Un stepped up its programme aimed at developing a missile capable of striking the United States with a nuclear warhead…. [Read full story]

