NK high-level delegates meet unification minister

By Kim Bo-eun, Joint Press Corps.

A North Korean high-level delegation visiting the South for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, including the regime’s leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong, met with South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon for dinner at Gangneung, Saturday.

The meeting came after the delegation held talks with President Moon Jae-in at Cheong Wa Dae earlier in the day, at which Kim Yo-jung invited Moon to Pyongyang for talks with her brother.

The four-member North Korean delegation is led by nominal head of state Kim Yong-nam, and is rounded out with North Korea’s National Sports Guidance Committee Chairman Choe Hwi, and Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

The delegates met with Cho, Vice Minister Chun Hae-sung, PyeongChang Olympics Organizing Committee CEO Lee Hee-beom and Gangwon Province Governor Choi Moon-soon, at the Skybay Hotel.

“Because the Games have started amid acclamations from people from North and South Korea as well as from around the world, I believe there will be reconciliation between our people, as well as improved North-South relations, which will ultimately lead to unification,” Kim Yong-nam said during the dinner.

The delegation, with minister Cho and vice-minister Chun, are heading to the Kwandong Hockey Center in Gangneung to watch the first ice hockey match the inter-Korean women’s team will play against Switzerland. The match will begin at 9:10 p.m.

The delegation attended the Games’ opening ceremony Friday, after arriving at Incheon International Airport via a private plane the same day.

The team will return to Pyongyang, Sunday, via the same plane which will return to transport them.