SKorean basketball team arrives in Pyongyang for inter-Korean match

(3 Jul 2018) South Korean basketball players arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, another step in a series of attempts this year to warm relations between Seoul and Pyongyang. South Korea's Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon headed the group of approximately 100 players, media, sports and government officials. North Korean Vice Minister of Sport Won Kil U was at Pyongyang airport to lead the North Korean welcoming party. The South Korean male and female basketball players are expected to play four matches with North Koreans over Wednesday and Thursday this week. It's not the first time that North and South Korea have tried to bond over basketball. South Korean company Hyundai built a basketball stadium in Pyongyang during the "Sunshine Period" of engagement between North and South, and a joint match was played there in 2003. Two rounds of inter-Korean basketball matches were held before that, in 1999. More recently, basketball made international headlines from Pyongyang when former NBA player Dennis Rodman arranged a match there in 2014 for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's birthday. It is not clear yet whether Kim Jong Un will attend any of the North-South basketball matches this week, but he did make a prominent appearance at a concert put on by South Korean musicians in Pyongyang earlier this year. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...