North Korea table tennis team heads South

SEOUL: North Korea will play in a table tennis competition in South Korea this month, in the latest sign of warming ties between the Cold War rivals whose rapprochement owes much to sport.

North Korea, who competed in February’s Winter Olympics in the South, will send a team for the Korean Open south of Seoul from July 17-22, the International Table Tennis Federation said.

“It is a proud moment for the ITTF to be able to support another sign of peace on the Korean Peninsula, by helping North Korea send a team to the Korean Open,” said ITTF president Tomas Weikert.

At the world team championships in May, North and South Korea were due to face each other in the women’s quarter-finals — but they were given permission to form a joint team instead, losing to Japan in the semi-finals.

Only this week, about 50 men and women basketball players from South played alongside North Koreans in combined teams in Pyongyang.