[Yonhap Photo]
SEOUL, Jan. 22 (Aju News) -- Dozens of South Korean conservative activists burned the portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un outside Seoul's main railway station Monday as a delegation from Pyongyang arrived to inspect venues for art performances during next month's Winter Olympics.
Activists chanting anti-North Korean slogans waved South Korean and U.S. flags when a special train carrying a seven-member team led by Hyon Song-wol, the female head of a North Korean orchestra, rolled into the railway station near central Seoul from the eastern port city of Gangneung.
A video clip posted by the Korea Patriots Party, a conservative anti-government group based in Seoul, showed the protesters torching Kim's portrait and a North Korean flag, surrounded by hundreds of riot police on a park outside the station.
Police used portable fire extinguishers to put out the flame, triggering scuffles, but they failed to stop the demonstrators from completing their mission.
North Korean delegates were escorted by South Korean security guards out of the railway station to go ahead with the inspection of concert halls in Seoul. On Sunday, they visited Gangneung, one of the Olympic host cities.
"The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics have become a propaganda tool for the Kim Jong-un regime," the demonstrators said in a statement, opposing a joint march by South and North Korean athletes under one flag at the opening ceremony on February 9.
The two Koreas have agreed on a joint women's ice hockey team, a 230-member cheering squad from North Korea, a 30-member taekwondo demonstration team, a joint cultural event at the North's Mount Kumgang resort and a joint training program for skiers at the North's Masikryong ski resort.
South and North Korean athletes will use the so-called Unification Flag, which represents all of Korea. Against the white background, there is a blue silhouette of the Korean peninsula in the center. The flag was first used in 1991 when the two countries competed as a single team in the 41st World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has supported a joint march and a unified Korea team as a good start for improving frozen cross-border relations.
Previously, sports games were used to promote inter-Korean reconciliation. North Korea took part in the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea's western port of Incheon. The Koreas have fielded joint teams in table tennis and men's football, but they have never had a single squad in any Olympic sport.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
