SEOUL– Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung said Thursday South Korea should not diplomatically boycott the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics.
“The United States has never officially asked us to join in the boycott,” Lee said at a meeting with editors at newspapers and broadcasters.
President Moon Jae-in and other senior officials have said that South Korea was not considering a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Games set for February, though no decision has been made.
“If we are concerned about what if the United States gets upset? … it could lead to an ill-advised decision,” Lee said. “We are not caught between the two, but are in a situation where we need to put them together.”
The U.S. boycott threw cold water on Seoul’s hopes to use the Olympics as a venue for inter-Korean reconciliation, as with the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, and to possibly declare a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War.
Source: Yonhap News Agency