North and South Korean Taekwondo Heads Meet in Seoul

Chang Ung from North Korea, president of the International Taekwondo Federation and current member of the International Olympic Committee met with Choue Chung-won, president of the World Taekwondo Federation in Seoul on April 8. It is the first time that heads of the two major Taekwondo organizations have come together in South Korea.

Chang has arrived in Seoul on April 6 with a North Korean exhibition team and had a talk with Choue for about 40 minutes yesterday in the WTF office in Samsung-dong, Seoul.

“It is my third visit to South Korea after the 2002 Busan Asian Games and the 2003 Daegu Universiade. It is my first time in Seoul though, so it seems that I’ve proceeded northwards,” said Chung, laughing.

When Choue said, “It won’t take long for me to visit Pyongyang (to open a WTF branch),” regarding the ITF’s registration as a corporation in the South, his North Korean counterpart answered, “It will always be welcomed.”

Asked about the first meeting of the Coordination Committee for Taekwondo Integration held by the end of last month in Beijing, China, IOC Commissioner Chang said, “The talks for integration will go into the details.” But not all of his remarks were optimistic. “The North and South are only an hour distance by plane, but I still have no idea how long the distance between the Taekwondo in the two countries is.”

beetlez@donga.com