Seoul, South Korea • The rival Koreas agreed Wednesday to form their first unified Olympic team and have their athletes parade together for the first time in 11 years during the opening ceremony of next month's Winter Olympics in South Korea, officials said.
The agreements still require approval from the International Olympic Committee. But they are the most prominent steps toward rapprochement achieved by the Koreas since they recently began exploring cooperation during the Olympics following a year of heightened tension over the North's nuclear weapons program.
Senior officials reached a package of agreements during their third day of talks at the border in about a week, including fielding a joint women's ice hockey team and marching together under a blue and white "unification flag" depicting their peninsula in the opening ceremony, Seoul's Unification Ministry said.