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Go-ahead for two Koreas to march together at Olympics

North and South Korea may march together at the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony on September 15, a top International Olympic Committee official said in Sydney on Wednesday.

According to AFP, Jacques Rogge, head of the co-ordination commission which overlooks preparations for the 2000 Games, said the IOC would give permission to such a request.

"If the two Koreas want to march together we will give our approval," he said. "It would be a very symbolic gesture."

However, he said the two countries would compete separately as their athletes had qualified to represent their individual countries.

Rogge said IOC president Juan-Antonio Samaranch had already approved the opening ceremony idea after South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung's historic summit with the North's leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang two weeks ago.

A unified parade would also be a timely gesture on the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.

North and South Korea will send a joint team to the World table tennis championships in Osaka, Japan, next year and two weeks ago South Korean Culture and Tourism Minister Park Jie-won said Kim Jong-il had agreed to North Korea staging two matches for the 2002 football World Cup finals being hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan.

The two Koreas also intend having a single team at the 2002 Asian Games, which are to be hosted by the South Korean city of Pusan. Proposals for North Korea to host events during the 1988 Seoul Olympics collapsed and Pyongyang did not send a team.