By D. Peter Kim
Contributing Writer
South Korea's Olympic team said Wednesday it had done all it could to push for a joint march with North Korea in Friday's opening ceremony of the Beijing Games.
``There's nothing more we can do,'' Lee Yun-taek, the team leader and chairman of the Korea Sports Council, said after the South Korean delegation entered the Athletes' Village in Beijing.
North Korea's unwillingness to march with South Korea in Beijing apparently stems from strained bilateral ties. Pyongyang has refused to cooperate in investigating last month's shooting death of a South Korean tourist in the Mount Geumgang area.
The North has also blasted the conservative line of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who took office in February.
The Olympics' opening ceremony will take place at 8 p.m. Friday Beijing time.
Both Koreas had agreed in their second major summit last year to field a single unified group of athletes and supporters in Beijing. The process faltered, however, after Pyongyang declined to discuss details.
The North also declined the Koreas marching one after the other in the Beijing ceremony based on alphabetical order of their country names in English. North Korea insisted on using the title ``Democratic People's Republic of Korea,'' and the Beijing Olympic organizing committee then changed South Korea's title to ``Republic of Korea.''
The committee had publicly said both Koreas would march one after the other, but did an about face after the North opposed. Two or three countries will now march between the Koreas.
The change in order also means President Lee will likely not sit near North Korea's parliamentary chief and No. 2 man Kim Yong-nam at the opening ceremony.
Both Koreas marched together in the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2004 Athens Games.
In Beijing, South Korea will field 267 athletes in 25 events in seeking to finish in the top 10 in the medal count.
North Korea has 63 athletes to compete in 12 events, and its target is to earn more than 10 medals.