[Yonhap Photo]
SEOUL, Jan. 24 (Aju News) -- North Korea will send female ice hockey players this week for joint training with southern compatriots despite what it called an "unpardonable" provocation by South Korean conservative activists who burned the portrait of its leader during a high-profile trip by the female head of a popular girl band in Pyongyang.
Government officials in Seoul heaved a sigh of relief Tuesday night when North Korea said in a message sent through an inter-Korean hotline that a 15-member ice hockey team, including 12 athletes, a head coach and two support personnel, would cross the border on Thursday to join an Olympic training camp in South Korea.
Separately, the North conveyed its decision to select concert venues for art performances in the eastern port city of Gangneung on February 8 and in Seoul on on February 11. North Korea has agreed to send a 140-member troupe consisting of an orchestra, singers and dancers.
The message came after Pyongyang threatened to renege on an earlier agreement on the dispatch of North Korean athletes and delegations for next month's Winter Games in South Korea.
In an angry statement published by Pyongyang's state media Tuesday, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, a state body in charge of inter-Korean affairs and negotiations, urged South Korea to apologize for overlooking "a grave political provocation" by conservative activists in Seoul.
The activists accused North Korean leader Kim Jong-un of using the Winter Olympics for political propaganda, burning his portrait and a North Korean flag in a protest outside Seoul's main railway station Monday when a delegation from Pyongyang arrived to inspect venues for art performances.
The protest erupted 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.
The North's committee slammed South Korea for allowing "an extraordinary criminal act" that could abort a hard-won breakthrough in inter-Korean relations, warning that there would be no "goodwill and generosity" unless South Korea stops similar crimes aimed at defaming the North's leadership and sacred national symbol.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
