North and South Korea agree: Neither wants defections during Olympic Games

South Korea normally encourages North Koreans to defect, but not at next month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, where North Korea will send an historic delegation. 

The reason: Both countries want to avoid a confrontation at such a sensitive time with the whole world watching.

“That would be a diplomatic incident that would work in no one’s favor,” said Jenny Town, assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. 

Both sides want the Olympics to go smoothly. The two countries will march in the opening ceremony behind the same flag, and the women’s ice hockey team will be the first with players from both countries. North Korea also will send a 230-member cheering squad and a 30-member taekwondo demonstration team.

More:IOC says North Korea to have 22 athletes in 5 Olympic sports

In addition, a 140-member orchestra from the North will be part of the delegation and is expected to perform in the South Korean capital of Seoul, 80 miles west of the Olympic site, and Gangneung, a city hosting some of the events.

The International Olympic Committee said Saturday that North Korea will send 22 athletes to 5 Olympic sports this year. 

A defection would be a major embarrassment for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a major blow to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has made peace overtures to the North a central policy.

Moon has urged North Korea to participate.

Neither side has much to worry about because the danger of anyone defecting from the delegation is low, Town said. “The people who are chosen to go are very loyal to the regime. There will be lots of security.”

The North’s participation came as a result of a series of historic meetings in a conference room in Panmunjom, a village that straddles the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries, which have maintained an uneasy truce since the end of a war in 1953.

The talks led to an agreement by North Korea to send a sizable contingent to the Games. 

The discussions have not resulted in any major diplomatic breakthroughs and are not designed to reach an agreement on North Korea’s controversial nuclear and ballistic missile development, which has led to bellicose exchanges between Kim and President Trump.

More:North and South Korea agree to form first unified Olympic team

More:Why the overwhelming majority of North Korean defectors are women

But Moon sees the Games as an opportunity to lessen tensions, which could lead to broader agreements, and has staked much of his political reputation on hopes the North’s participation will go off without a hitch.

The North’s delegation will be carefully vetted and consist of regime loyalists, analysts say. Their movements will be highly scripted and they will always be together, providing no opportunities to slip away.

“These are people they trust,” said Robert Wampler, an analyst at the National Security Archive.

Even so, the North will add security officials to the delegation whose job it will be to monitor the athletes, who will be aware that their families in North Korea will be at risk if they attempt to flee.

Defections are frequent and have been the source of tensions between the two countries. More than 30,000 North Koreans have made it to South Korea since the end of the Korean War.

Four North Korea soldiers dashed across the border to the South last year, in some cases under fire from North Korean soldiers attempting to stop them.

The bulk of the defections are people fleeing desperate economic circumstances. It is rarer to have privileged members of the regime flee, though there have been a handful of high-level defections.

Historically, South Korea has encouraged defections and used them as a propaganda leverage against the much poorer and isolated North. South Korea last year quadrupled the reward it pays defectors who escape with valuable intelligence from $217,000 to $860,000.

No members of North Korean sports teams have ever defected while traveling abroad. “I seriously doubt there is really any risk of defection,” Wampler said.