05/17/26 02:03:00
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05/17 02:01 CDT North Korean women's soccer team arrives in South Korea for
regional tournament
North Korean women's soccer team arrives in South Korea for regional tournament
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) --- A North Korean women's soccer team arrived in South
Korea on Sunday to compete in a regional tournament, the first visit by North
Korean athletes in eight years amid political tensions between the two nations.
A total of 39 players and staff with North Korea's Naegohyang Women's FC
arrived at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul, aboard a plane
from China. They didn't make any comments, though some activists shouted
"Welcome! Welcome!" and citizens used their mobile phones to film their arrival.
The North Korean team will face South Korea's Suwon FC Women on Wednesday in
the semifinals of the Asian Football Confederation Women's Champions League in
Suwon, a city south of Seoul.
The two Koreas have occasionally used sports events to create feel-good moments
when relations were amicable. But the latest soccer event won't likely signal
any thaw in their long-strained ties, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
maintaining his confrontational stance against South Korea.
"We should be cautious about interpreting their visit to South Korea as a sign
of an improvement in South-North relations," Lee Wootae, a senior research
fellow at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification, said in a recent
report. "It would be more accurate to view this as a limited South-North Korean
contact within the framework of international sports."
In recent years, Kim has repeatedly called South Korea his country's principal
enemy and taken steps to eliminate the idea of shared statehood and establish a
hostile "two-state" system on the Korean Peninsula. Observers say such a move
likely stems from Kim's wariness of South Korea's cultural influence and his
purported perception that South Korea is no longer useful in dealings with the
U.S.
North Korea last sent its athletes to South Korea in December 2018 for a table
tennis event. At the time, North and South Korea were engaged in a flurry of
exchange and cooperation programs following the North's participation in the
Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea earlier in 2018.
The brief period of inter-Korean detente came to an end after a U.S.-led
diplomacy on ending North Korea's nuclear program collapsed in 2019 due to
disputes over international sanctions on the North. North Korea has since
performed a provocative run of weapons tests to expand its nuclear arsenal and
rebuffed South Korean and U.S. offers to restore diplomacy.
South Korea's current liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung,
espouses rapprochement with North Korea. The government said it will provide
financial support to civic groups planning to organize a 3,000-member squad to
cheer for both North and South Korean teams at Wednesday's match.
"We will enthusiastically cheer for them by chanting the names of both teams
and their players, while faithfully adhering to AFC guidelines," the civic
groups said in a joint statement.
North Korea is a powerhouse in women's soccer, particularly at the youth level.
It has won the Under-17 Women's World Cup four times and the Under-20 Women's
World Cup three times. Naegohyang Women's FC defeated Suwon FC Women 3-0 in the
group stage in Myanmar last November.
Melbourne City FC and Tokyo Verdy Beleza are to face off in the other semifinal
on Wednesday. The final is set for Saturday at a stadium in Suwon.
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