Pyongyang: North Korea’s sports ministry said on Tuesday that it will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics this year to protect its athletes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
At a meeting of the North’s national Olympic Committee on March 25 in Pyongyang, it decided that a delegation would skip the Tokyo Olympics “in order to protect our athletes from the global health crisis caused by the malicious virus infection,” according to the Sports in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a government-run website.
The latest decision puts an end to Seoul’s hopes of using the Games to engage with Pyongyang amid stalled cross-border talks.
In 2018, both sides entered a joint team at the Winter Olympics which led to a series of historic summits.
The announcement makes North Korea the first major country to skip this year’s Games because of the pandemic.
The Games are currently scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8. The Paralympics will follow, from August 24 to September 5.
This is the first time North Korea has missed the Olympics since it boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. In 2018, the leaders of two Koreas agreed to pursue co-hosting the Olympic Games in 2032, but the inter-Korean discussion on the matter ceased in 2019.
The Olympic Games were originally scheduled for 2020, but organizers were forced to postpone the Olympics for the first time in the event’s history due to the pandemic.
