NK expected to use Rio Games for breakthroughs

Choe Ryong-hae, right, vice chairman of North Korea’s State Affairs Commission, shakes hands with a North Korean official at Pyongyang International Airport, Saturday, before he and other members of a high-level delegation left the country to attend the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games in Brazil. / Yonhap

By Jun Ji-hye

North Korea appears to be depending on sports to improve its national image and seek diplomatic breakthroughs as it has sent a ranking official to Brazil for the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games that start next week.

According to the North’s Korean Central News Agency, Saturday, a high-level delegation led by Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the North’s State Affairs Commission, left Pyongyang on the day to attend the Summer Games and arrived in Beijing, with him seen to enter the North Korean Embassy there about an hour after his arrival at 10 a.m. Choe currently doubles as the head of North Korea’s Physical Culture and Sports Commission.

According to Japan’s Kyodo News, sending Choe, a close aide of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, to Brazil shows the regime’s willingness to improve its image through the Olympic Games. Japanese media also quoted a diplomatic source as saying that Choe would stay in Brazil for a week. Choe has visited China and Russia, but this is his first visit elsewhere.

The North, facing international sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs, has taken advantage of international sporting events as a springboard to seek diplomatic breakthroughs.

The repressive state dispatched Kim Yong-nam, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, to the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games in Russia, during which he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Choe was also part of a North Korean delegation that included Hwang Pyong-so, the top military official in the North, and the late Kim Yang-gon, in charge of inter-Korean relations, to visit the closing ceremony of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games and held inter-Korean high-level talks to ease tension.

North Korea and Brazil established diplomatic relations in March 2001. The North opened its embassy there in 2005, while Brazil opened its in Pyongyang in 2009.

Around 30 North Korean athletes have been sent to Brazil to compete in wrestling, judo, the marathon and six other sports.

Choe’s stopover in Beijing comes as China has shown signs of making efforts to forge better ties with North Korea after its relations with South Korea soured following Seoul’s decision to allow the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here next year.

Experts are watching whether Choe and Chinese officials will discuss the issue of the missile defense system if any meetings are held.

Seoul and Washington announced the deployment decision on July 8, saying that it will enhance the nation’s capability of deterring Pyongyang’s evolving nuclear and missile threats.

But Beijing is expressing strong opposition to the missile defense system, apparently out of concern that the weapon’s AN/TPY-2 radar could spy on its military activities and missile capabilities.

Concerns have been abounding that the North’s long-time ally China could become lax in implementing international sanctions against Pyongyang in anger over the deployment decision. In March, the United Nations Security Council imposed the harshest sanctions yet on the Kim Jong-un regime for its fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket the following month.

The North is also protesting the deployment, warning that it would make “merciless” retaliatory strikes against Seoul and Washington. On July 19, the repressive state fired three short-range ballistic missiles in an apparent show of force.

Regarding Choe’s stopover in Beijing, Seoul’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said he did not place much importance on it.

“The matter does need to be checked further, but Choe may have just stopped at the Chinese capital en route to Rio de Janeiro,” Yun said after meeting officials of the countries diplomatic mission in Rome.