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North and South Korea are likely to march together at the start of this week's Asian Games and are planning to resume talks on forming a joint team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, South Korean officials said yesterday.
"We are planning to march together at the Asian Games in Doha and sports officials from the South and North will likely meet there to work out the final details," a Unification Ministry official said by telephone.
After entering the stadium together to start the games, the South and North would then compete as separate teams in Doha, other officials have said.
South Korea has also told the North it was willing to quickly resume talks on forming a joint Olympic team, said the Unification Ministry official, who asked not to be named.
Still technically at war because the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with a truce and not a peace treaty, North and South Korea first considered competing as a joint team at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, but years of acrimony and military tensions have prevented the notion.
Earlier this month, North Korea said it was willing to put back on track sports cooperation projects it had halted in anger when Seoul brought pressure to bear on Pyongyang for the North's defiant actions such as its missile test in July.
Forming a joint team will be difficult. The South, with better-funded sports programmes and more world-class athletes, wants to field the most competitive team possible.
North Korea has said it wants to field a joint team with equal representation of athletes from the North and South.
North and South Korea have marched together at past Olympics, including this year's Winter Games in Turin, but competed as separate teams.
- REUTERS
