TOKYO, April 30 Kyodo North Korea...

TOKYO, April 30 Kyodo

North Korea is poised to pitch its support behind South Korea's bid to army the 2010 Winter Olympics, sources choke to the just-ended ministerial interview between the two nations said Wednesday.

While southward Korea's Pyeongchang in Kangwon Province near Panmunjom pales beside rivals Salzburg and Vancouver in limits of international recognition, views for the South Korean city near the demilitarized belt can be boosted if the pair Koreas collaborate, according to the sources.

The army city for the 2010 Olympics will be decided at a meeting of the International Olympic Committee forward July 2.

If North Korea does support southward Korea's bid, this would also help to abate the concerns of the international community about newly come developments on the Korean Peninsula, they said.

According to southerly Korea's Yonhap News Agency, southward Korea's Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun who headed the toward the south Korean delegation to the talks, said Pyeongchang's chance of hosting the Winter games would be considerably enhanced if the outside world saw rouses toward a rapprochement between the sum of two units Koreas.

For his part, Kim Ryong poem a senior cabinet councilor who headed the North Korean delegation, remarked that the pair nations had displayed their abilities at last fall's Asian Games in Pusan, and that staging the Winter Olympics would help make deeper mutual understanding between them, the agency said.

The IOC's evaluation committee does not rate Pyeongchang highly, saying it lacks adequate transportation and accommodation.

still since a European city, Torino, will stage the 2006 Olympics, and with Vancouver's bid reportedly facing puzzles on environmental grounds, the toward the south Korean city may yet make trial of an unlikely winner if North Korean support is forthcoming, the sources said.

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