North-South cultural event set

DAEGU ― A joint cultural performance by North and South Korean students will take place today in the Duryu baseball stadium in Daegu. The performance is one of the events planned for the 2003 Daegu Summer Universiade, which ends Sunday. Cancellation had been threatened because of the unease between the two Koreas resulting from recent scuffles between the North Korean team and South Korean civic groups holding anti-North protests. The North had threatened to boycott the university sports games unless the South apologized for the demonstrations. South Korea’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Lee Chang-dong, on Wednesday offered an apology to the North Korean team for the protests, saying, “Some civic groups were politicizing the sports festival of friendship and unity of the world’s youth.” As a result, the North continued to participate in the games and said it would take part in tonight’s cultural performance as planned. Some analysts said the North has never had any intention of boycotting the performance since, by participating, it would be able to take pride in the fact that South Koreans were singing the North’s songs and cheering along with North Koreans during the event. Except for the joint cheering, details of the performance have not been reported yet. But an official who is organizing the event said it is likely that members of the South’s Hanchongryun may join the performance. Hanchongryun is a radical student organization that has been designated an “anti-state body” under the National Security Law because it supports North Korea. The performance, scheduled for 7:30 p.m., will be recorded by KBS and aired at 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Meanwhile, North Korea’s cheerleaders, who had stopped participating in the games after the clash between the North Korean team and South Korean civic groups, reappeared at the event yesterday. By Ko Soo-suk / JoongAng Ilbo