SEOUL, REUTER — The Inter. national Olympic committee chief told South Korean politicians on Thursday he would visit Pyongyang in a last-minute bid to persuade North Korea to attend the Seoul Olympics, opposition leader Kim Young-Sam said.
Kim told reporters that Juan Antonio Samaranch would announce the trip later on Thursday before leaving Seoul after a four day stay.
Samaranch met Kim and other party leaders over breakfast to explain why it was now too late to allow Pyongyang to co-host the event, due to open on September 27, and to discuss ways of persuading North Korea to send a team to Seoul.
‘As they talked, some 100 radical students demonstrated outside demanding that the IOC change its mind on North Korean co-hosting.
Last week, after violent radical protests in Seoul demanding jointly-staged Olympics, spokeswoman Michele Verdier said the committee would not yield to Pyongyang’s co-hosting demand, which she said ran counter to the Olympic charter.
Verdier said the IOC would keep the door open until the last minute for North Korea to attend the games despite the passing of the January 17 deadline, set for countries to indicate whether they would participate.
Samaranch presided over four rounds of talks between North and South Korea in 1986 and 1987 in a fruitless attempt to reach a compromise.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 10, 1988
