Koreas March together at Asian video games

North and South Korea marched collectively Friday on the opening ceremonies of the Asian video games, however remained at odds over how to container a joint group for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

The Koreas marched under a blue-and-white unification flag at the ceremonies in Doha, ahead of the region's greatest sporting adventure. South Korean guys's basketball player Lee Kyu-sup, together with North Korean women's soccer player Ri Kum Suk, carried the flag into Khalifa Stadium.

Representatives from the Koreas held two days of meetings earlier than the Asian games opening ceremony to finalized their plans to march together. Discussions of the group for Beijing were inconclusive but will proceed, besides the fact that children the time has now not been set, a South Korean Olympic Committee official pointed out.

international Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, the head of Qatar's royal family unit and 50."000 spectators attended the opening ceremonies. a mix of reside efficiency and hi-tech props helped the sellout stadium radically change into a sea of illuminated orbs, flashing glow sticks, whirling fans and Qatari national flags.

The Koreas have marched collectively eight times due to the fact that the Sydney Olympics in 2000, however the North's recent examine of a nuclear weapon has deepened the rift between the two, that are nonetheless technically at battle following the armistice that ended the Korean war in 1953. Their border is still one of the crucial heavily armed on earth.

North Korea become harshly criticized and hit with sanctions by using the U.N. security Council for its Oct. 9 nuclear test and a sequence of ballistic missile test-launches in July.

tension over the assessments practically scuttled plans for the two nations to march collectively at the Asian video games. North Korea had proposed the joint march, but South Korea expressed reservations unless the remaining minute.

Forming the unified group for Beijing continues to be a tougher situation.

both Koreas have by no means fielded a unified crew for an Olympics and range on the way to select participants of a joint team. The North is looking for a set percentage for its athletes, claiming that they are at a drawback because the South Koreans have greater funds for working towards amenities and more suitable possibility to compete internationally. In certain, they are at odds over a way to opt for groups for activities equivalent to soccer.