Seoul, South Korea – North Korea said on Friday that she would not participate in next month’s Beijing Olympics because coronavirus pandemic and action by “hostile forces”, a largely nonsensical statement because the country has already been barred from the Games. International Olympic Committee,
In September, the committee suspended North Korea until 2022 for refusing to send a team. Tokyo Summer GamesCiting the pandemic. IOC President Thomas Bach said at the time that individual North Korean athletes who qualified to compete in Beijing could still be accepted. There is no word on how this happened.
On Friday, North Korea’s state media said its Olympic committee and sports ministry had sent a letter to their counterparts China To formally inform his last major ally and economic pipeline that he may not attend the Olympics. The games open on February 4.
According to the official Korean Central News Agency, the letter said, “Due to the moves of hostile forces and the worldwide epidemic, we could not take part in the Olympics.”
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The KCNA dispatch did not specify what the hostile forces were. But analyst Cheong Seong-chang of the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said he most likely referred to the IOC, or the United States, France and Britain, which North Korea believes are behind the IOC suspension. Huh.
Despite the IOC’s decision, there was still hope in Seoul and elsewhere that the Games could serve as a venue for reconciliation between rival Koreas with the support of the IOC. At the 2018 Winter Games, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, athletes from rival countries marched together in the opening ceremony and fielded a team in women’s ice hockey.
Such hopes were dashed last week when North Korean leaders Kim Jong Un He vowed to strengthen his armed forces and uphold his country’s strict virus restrictions, but did not reveal any new policy towards Washington and Seoul during a major political conference. On Wednesday, North Korea did what it called a . Said hypersonic missile test In its first weapons test in two months.
“There is no reason for Kim Jong Un to attend the Beijing Olympics, and South Korea’s push for a political declaration to end the Korean War on the occasion of the Olympics has failed,” Cheong said.
North Korea has maintained some of the world’s toughest sanctions to contain the virus, including a two-year border closure. Since the pandemic began, the country has been skipping major international sporting events, including the Olympic prelims.
The North Korean letter also accused the United States and its allies of trying to obstruct the successful hosting of the Games.
“The US and its vassal forces are becoming more explicit in their moves against China, which aim to prevent the successful opening of the Olympics,” the letter said. “(North Korea) completely rejects those moves, branding them as an insult to the spirit of the International Olympic Charter and as a base act of an attempt to denigrate China’s international image.”
The letter most likely refers to a diplomatic boycott of the gamesled by the United States, to protest China’s human rights record. Under the boycott, athletes would participate in the Games but no official delegation would be sent to Beijing. China has called the US action “outright political provocation”.