PYEONGCHANG, Korea, Republic Of — North Korea will send its nominal head of state and other senior officials to South Korea this week, Seoul officials said Sunday, as the rivals push through with rare rapprochement steps ahead of this month’s Winter Olympics in the South. Kim Yong Nam, the head of the North’s parliament, will be the highest-level North Korean official to visit South Korea since the North sent then-No. 2 Hwang Pyong So at the close of the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. Twelve of the North Korean athletes have formed the Koreas’ first Olympic team in women’s hockey, and the North is also to send a 230-member cheering group and a 140-person art troupe. The Koreas’ reconciliation mood follows a year of heightened tensions over North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile programs.

Source: National Post February 04, 2018 15:31 UTC