South and North Korea
South and North Korea have agreed to form a single women's ice hockey team and march together under a "unification flag" in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics next month, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
The games will take place between February 9 and 25 in Pyeongchang.
These decisions were made by the leaders of both countries in a working meeting held in Panmunjom, a border city where the ceasefire was signed in the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula.
The unification flag will feature an image of the Korean Peninsula instead of their respective national symbols in the opening ceremony of the Olympic event.
The agreement requires the approval of the International Olympic Committee. The South Korean minister added that the two Koreas will consult with the IOC this weekend.
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A North Korean delegation will visit the Olympic facilities next week in the host city of the upcoming games, located 80 kilometers from the inter-Korean border. Meanwhile, South Korean athletes may train in the north at the Masikryong resort.
The North Korean representation, which would consist of 550 people, including delegation members, cheerleaders, and journalists, will travel to Pyeongchang by road.
[Seol Hyun, from the South Korean female group AOA, with the torch of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics in Seoul]
Last week, North Korea agreed in principle to send athletes to the first Winter Games organized by its southern neighbors.
On January 10, South Korea proposed to the North to march their two delegations together in the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Olympic Games, as well as to field a united women's team in the ice hockey tournament. These proposals have been accepted.
On Saturday, representatives of both countries will meet in Lausanne, at the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to discuss the details of their participation and validate their agreement.
The two Koreas, which are still officially at war, have already marched together in the opening ceremonies of the games in 2000 in Sydney, in 2004 in Athens, and in 2006 in Turin.
However, they have never had a common team in multi-discipline international games, although they did form a selection with athletes from both countries in the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships.
North Korea had boycotted Seoul-1988, the only Olympic Games held so far in South Korea.