N. Korea's football players arrive in S. Korea for U-15 games
2014/11/02 21:10
SEOUL, Nov. 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korean teenage football players arrived in South Korea Sunday for an inaugural U-15 football competition to be held in a border town amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The North Korean delegation -- 22 athletes and 10 officials -- did not make any comments to South Korean reporters as they got on a bus at the Incheon International Airport.
The North Korean players will compete against five other teams from South Korea, Uzbekistan and China during a three-day event set to open Friday in Yeoncheon, about 60 kilometers north of Seoul, according to an organizer.
It is the first time in seven years that North Korean teenage football players have come to South Korea.
The visit came a day after North Korea vowed not to hold dialogue with South Korea unless Seoul keeps activists and North Korean defectors from floating leaflets critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Yeoncheon is one of several areas where activists and North Korean defectors regularly float leaflets via balloons to tell the truth to North Koreans and eventually encourage them to rise up against Kim.
Also Saturday, North Korea threatened to sternly "punish and finish off" those who are involved in the leafleting campaign, condemning them as "human scum."
North Korea has recently rejected previously planned high-level talks with South Korea in protest of anti-Pyongyang leaflets.
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