Seoul city seeks to co-host sports competition with Pyongyang

The Seoul city government will seek to co-host next year's annual national sports competition with Pyongyang as part of efforts to boost all-around exchanges with North Korea, officials said Monday.

Mayor Park Won-soon plans to hold a meeting with members of the city's advisory committee on inter-Korean exchanges later this week to discuss ways forward in the wake of last week's historic summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, officials said.

"We're in a situation where it's difficult to seek active exchanges in areas other than culture and sports because North Korea is under international sanctions," a city official said. "We're going to focus on culture and sports exchanges but will also discuss ways to expand humanitarian assistance."

Officials said the first goal will be to co-host the national sports competition that Seoul is set to host next year with Pyongyang and to revive friendly soccer matches held between the teams representing Seoul and Pyongyang in the late 1920s and 40s.

Mayor Park made the proposals when he met with Ri Son-kwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, a North Korean agency in charge of inter-Korean exchanges, on the sidelines of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Officials said the city hopes to co-host the national sports competition, an Olympic-like event in which delegations of large cities and provinces compete for medals, but if it's difficult to co-host it, Seoul will try to have a delegation from Pyongyang participate in the competition. (Yonhap)