Olympics committee secures North Korea’s participation in next two games

North Korea will participate in the next two Olympic Games, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said Saturday after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Bach announced the news upon returning to Beijing from Pyongyang, Reuters reported.

“This commitment was fully supported by the supreme leader of the DPRK in a very open and fruitful discussion I had with him yesterday,” Bach said, using the acronym for the official name for North Korea.

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The news comes more than a month after North Korea agreed to send athletes to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The Olympics were largely seen as having contributed to easing the tensions between the two Koreas.

According to Bach, the IOC plans to propose joint activities for both Koreas in the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and possibly the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Bach reportedly told Kim that his trip was to express thanks for North Korea’s participation in the recent Olympics, according to Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the North Korean state news agency.

Kim thanked the IOC for its support and cooperation “regardless of any political climate and conditions,” KCNA said.

The meeting comes less than a week after Kim traveled to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The White House has said that President Trump and Kim are aiming to meet sometime before the end of May to discuss North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.