The head of a hugely popular North Korean girl band crossed the heavily fortified border into South Korea on Sunday to check preparations for an art troupe she also leads during next month’s Winter Olympics.
Appearing live on South Korean television, Hyon Song Wol did not speak when she walked past a crowd of reporters, onlookers and a barrage of camera flashes before boarding an express train at Seoul’s railway station for the eastern city of Gangneung, where her art troupe is to perform during the Pyeongchang Olympics.
She is also the leader of Pyongyang’s all-female Moranbong Band, which was hand-picked by leader Kim Jong Un.
She has been the subject of intense South Korean media attention since she attended last week’s talks at the border that struck an agreement on the art troupe’s two performances — one in Seoul and the other in Gangneung, where some of the games will take place.
TV stations broadcast live footage of Ms Hyon’s bus moving on Seoul’s roads before arriving at the railway station, where hundreds of police officers were mobilised to maintain order.
Photos showed a smiling Hyon shaking heads with a South Korean official upon arrival at the border.
Later on Sunday, wearing a fur scarf and with half her hair tied to the back, she looked more serious with an expressionless face.
Ms Hyon’s arrival came hours after the International Olympic Committee allowed 22 North Korean athletes to take part in the Olympics in exceptional entries given to the North.
Among the 22 are 12 women who will join South Korea’s female hockey team in the Koreas’ first-ever unified Olympic team.
The other sports events the North Koreans will compete in are figure skating, short track speed skating, Alpine skiing and cross-country skiing.
The 22 North Korean athletes will also march together with South Korean players under a single “unification flag” depicting their peninsula during the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang.
“Such an agreement would have seemed impossible only a few weeks ago,” IOC chief Thomas Bach said in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The current mood of reconciliation between the Koreas flared after Kim abruptly expressed his willingness to improve ties and send a delegation to the Olympics during his annual New Year’s address.
Outside critics dismissed Kim’s overture as a tactic to use improved ties with Seoul to weaken US-led international sanctions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.
Ms Hyon is travelling with six other North Koreans. Her delegation was earlier supposed to come to South Korea on Saturday, but North Korea cancelled those plans on Friday night before it proposed coming on Sunday for a two-day trip.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here