South Korea is floating a proposal to create a joint women’s hockey team with North Korea for the upcoming Winter Olympics in the South, despite the two nations technically remaining in a state of war against each other.
South Korea is floating a proposal to create a joint women’s hockey team with North Korea for the upcoming Winter Olympics in the South, despite the two nations technically remaining in a state of war against each other.
A top South Korean official said the prospect of a unified Korean team was discussed during the sudden round of diplomacy this week between North and South, according to the official Yonhap News Agency in Seoul .
The North, which participated in talks with officials from the South on Tuesday, has not yet responded to the proposal for a joint team, which would be unusual but not totally unprecedented.
Yonhap noted that North and South Korea fielded joint teams at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships and the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship, although they have never had a unified team in any sport at multi-sport competitions like the Olympics or the Asian Games.
The news agency said South Korean Sports Minister Do Jong-hwan first raised the possibility of one Korean hockey team last year, but was immediately met with criticism.
Opponents of the idea said it was unfair to take away roster spots from South Korean players to make room for North Koreans and risk disrupting team chemistry.
The two Koreas are likely to hold working-level talks next week to further discuss the issue, and more broadly on what the North’s overall participation in the games will look like.
The two nations, which are divided by a highly fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), have technically remained at conflict with each other since the 1953 armistice that froze the Korean War.
