North Korea’s national women’s soccer team on Friday pledged to beat the South in the East Asian Cup in Seoul.
The team arrived in South Korea on Thursday,July 18th to participate in the four-nation Women’s East Asian cup, which also features China and Japan.
The event will see the two Koreas compete against each other at Seoul’s World Cup stadium on Sunday.
The tournament takes place while the two nations are engaged in rare talks aimed at restarting a jointly run industrial project in Kaesong, which closed in April as relations between Seoul and Pyongyang had plummeted.
The closure of the park, a money-spinner for the impoverished North, came after North Korea threatened strikes with nuclear and other missiles against the South and the United States after the United Nations imposed toughened sanctions on the North for its third nuclear test in February.
When Kim was asked about tense relations between the two Koreas, he declined to speak about politics.
The last sports exchange between the two sides was when a North Korean soccer team played a World Cup qualifier match against South Korea in 2009.
The women’s East Asian Cup wraps up on July 27. A men’s tournament is being held at the same time but North Korea did not qualify for the finals.