SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea became the first country to drop the Tokyo Olympics over fear of the coronavirus, a decision that underscores the challenges Japan faces as it struggles to host a global sporting event to organize amid a raging pandemic.
A website of the North Korean Ministry of Sports said the National Olympic Committee had decided at a meeting on March 25 not to participate in the Games to protect athletes from the “global public health crisis caused by COVID-19.”
The pandemic has already pushed back the Tokyo Games, originally scheduled for 2020, and organizers have made efforts to take preventive measures, such as banning international spectators, to ensure the safety of athletes and residents.
However, there is still concern that the Olympics could exacerbate the spread of the virus, and Japan’s rising caseload and slow vaccine rollout have raised questions among the public as to whether the Games should be held at all.
Japan’s Olympic Committee said on Tuesday that North Korea has not yet told it it will not participate in the Tokyo Games.
Katsunobu Kato, the Japanese cabinet secretary, said the government hopes that many countries will participate in the Olympics and has promised extensive anti-virus measures.
South Korea’s Ministry of Unification expressed regret at the North’s decision, saying it had hoped the Tokyo Olympics would provide an opportunity to improve inter-Korean relations, which have waned amid deadlock in larger nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.
North Korea sent 22 athletes to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, along with government officials, performers, journalists and a 230-member all-female cheering group.
At the Pyeongchang Games, the North and South Korean athletes marched together under a blue card symbolizing a unified Korean peninsula, while the red-clad North Korean cheerleaders drew worldwide attention. The Koreas also played their first combined Olympic team in women’s ice hockey, which received passionate support from the public despite losing all five games with a combined score of 28-2.
Those games were also a lot about politics. The North Korean contingent included the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who conveyed her brother’s desire for a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a move that helped North talks with South. Korea and the United States to begin.
Diplomatic efforts have since been at a standstill, and North Korea’s decision to sit out the Olympic Games in Tokyo is a setback in hopes of reviving it.
While North Korea steadfastly claims to be coronavirus-free, outsiders have expressed doubts as to whether the country has completely escaped the pandemic, given the poor health infrastructure and porous border it shares with China, its economic lifeline.
North Korea describes its anti-virus efforts as a “matter of national existence” and has severely restricted cross-border traffic, banned tourists, jettisoned diplomats and mobilized health workers with quarantine of tens of thousands of people showing symptoms.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said earlier that he expected to invite US President Joe Biden to the Olympics and that he was willing to meet with Kim Jong Un or his sister if either attended the Games. Suga didn’t say whether he would invite any of them, however.
Experts say pandemic border closures have further shaken the North Korean economy, which has already been broken by decades of mismanagement, aggressive military spending and crippling US-led sanctions on its nuclear weapons program.
Due to the economic setbacks, Kim has failed to reveal his ambitious diplomacy with former President Donald Trump, who was derailed by disagreements in exchanging the release of sanctions and the North’s nuclear disarmament measures.
Kim has pledged in recent political speeches to strengthen his nuclear deterrent in the face of US-led pressure, and his administration has so far rejected the Biden administration’s overture to talks and demanded that Washington cease its ‘hostile’ policies first. .
The North ended a year-long hiatus in ballistic testing activity last month by firing two short-range missiles off the East Coast, continuing a tradition of testing new U.S. governments with weapons demonstrations aimed at measuring the response of the United States. Washington and the denial of concessions.
AP writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to the report.