South and North Koreas have agreed to march together under a one united flag during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics next month, moving another step closer to easing tensions on the Korean peninsula heightened in the wake of Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests in the last year.

The two Koreas will also field a joint South and North Korean women’s ice hockey team, which would be the first united team of the two playing in an Olympics game, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement after the end of a day-long working-level talks between the two neighboring countries at the demilitarized zone (DMZ).

Under the latest agreement, athletes from the two Koreas will march under a “unification” flag instead of their respective national flags during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics that will take place between Feb. 9 and 25 in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province in South Korea. They had occasionally used a “unification” flag, which features a blue shape of the Korean peninsula on a white background, during international sports games since 1990s, but the flag has disappeared from the international sports scene since mid-2000s when their ties frozen.

After a series of talks on Wednesday, Seoul and Pyongyang also agreed to hold a joint cultural event at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea before the opening of the Olympics and joint ski training sessions at Masikryong Ski Resort on the North Korea’s east coast. The ski resort is one of the lavish projects by the North’s leader Kim Jong-un to show off to the outside world. Kim also reportedly enjoyed skiing during his study in Switzerland. Meanwhile, Mount Kumgang was once a popular tourist destination among South Koreans until the resort was shut down following a tragic incident where a South Korean tourist was fatally shot by a North Korean solider there in 2008.

On top of them, South Korea agreed with North Korea on the latter’s proposal to send a 230-member cheering squad and a taekwondo demonstration team for the Olympics.

These major breakthroughs between the two countries were made in just over a week after they agreed on the North’s plan to send a large-scale delegation including government officials, athletes, cheering squad, and reporters to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. To discuss the participation of the hermit country in the Olympics its democratic neighboring country will be hosting next month, government officials from the two nations have met three times in less than three weeks after the North leader Kim made a surprise offer to send delegation to the Olympics. The North had remained silent to South Korean President’s repeated requests to join the Winter Olympics last year.

Under the latest agreement, North Korean delegation will travel to South Korea through a western land road, which used to be mainly used by South Korean businesses that had factories in a joint industrial complex in the North’s border city of Kaesong. It would be the first time for the road to be reopened since February 2016 when the South shut down the industrial park in condemnation of Pyongyang’s undeterred nuclear and missile tests.

To join North Korea’s art troupe for a joint cultural event at the Mount Kumgang resort, South Korean counterpart will use the eastern land road, which has remained mostly close since 2008 when the two countries’ joint tour program at Mount Kumgang was suspended following the death of the South Korean tourist. Since then, the road was temporarily used a few times for families of the two countries who were separated by the 1950-53 Korean War to be united.

Sports and government officials from the two Koreas will meet with officials from the Pyeongchang organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee at the IOC headquarters in Switzerland on Saturday to discuss the size of North Korean Olympic athlete team and which games North Korean athletes would participate. A deadline to confirm participation has already passed. At the meeting, the two Koreas are also expected to ask the IOC to allow the participation of the joint women’s ice hockey team.

On Monday, officials from the two Koreans agreed on the dispatch of North Korea’s 140-member art troupe comprising orchestra members, singers and dancers that would perform in the South during the Olympics.

The two countries will hold follow-up meetings to discuss details about the North’s participation in the Paralympics in Pyeongchang that will take place after the end of the Winter Games.

By Kim Sung-hoon and Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]