U. S. ambassador: Sending athletes to South Korea Olympics an ‘open question’
The North launched an intercontinental ballistic missile late last month, a missile Kim Jong Un and his regime says can reach any target in the continental United States.
The U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said there should be discussions over the safety of sending American athletes to the Korean Peninsula for the Winter Olympics amid North Korea tensions.
Speaking with Fox News on Wednesday, the ambassador said there’s an “open question” on sending athletes to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February.
“Those are conversations we are going to have to have, but what have we always said? We don’t ever fear anything,” Haley said. “We live our lives, we use our freedom, we have that.
“Certainly that’s the perfect opportunity for all [athletes] to go and do something they’ve worked so hard for. What we will do is make sure we are taking every precaution possible to make sure they’re safe and to know everything that’s going on around them.” the ambassador said.
Haley’s comments came the same day the North said that nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula has become a matter of when, not if, as it continued to lash out at a massive joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea involving hundreds of advanced warplanes.
When asked by Fox News whether American athletes will compete, the ambassador said “That’s an open question. I have not heard anything about that, but I do know in the talks that we have, whether it’s Jerusalem, whether it’s North Korea, it’s always about how do we protect the U. S. citizens in the area. Those are conversations that are happening daily.”
The North launched an intercontinental ballistic missile late last month, a missile Kim Jong Un and his regime says can reach any target in the continental United States.
The U. S. flew a B-1B supersonic bomber over South Korea as part of a massive combined aerial exercise involving hundreds of warplanes on Wednesday. The exercise fell during five days of drills on the peninsula.
The Winter Games are scheduled to get underway on Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang, which is about 80 kilometres from the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
The U. S. Olympic Committee said Thursday the committee had not had any discussions, either internally or with government officials, about the possibility of not taking teams to next year’s Olympics.
Global News has reached out to the Canadian Olympic Committee regarding North Korea, but did not receive response by time of publication.
–with a file from the Associated Press.
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