If the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics offered a look at political tension, this week's close of the Pyeongchang Games could do the same.
Weeks after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence refused to engage with Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, from the press box of South Korea's opening festivities, North Korea is set to send one of its highest-ranking generals to the Olympics' final awards ceremony this weekend.
Kim Yong-chol, the leader of North Korea's department for inter-Korea relations and the former head of Reconnaissance General Bureau, a spy agency "accused of masterminding attacks on South Korea," will be in attendance, BBC reported Thursday.
South Korean officials did, however, also tell BBC that Yong-chol is set to meet with South Korean president Moon Jae-in during his stay.
There are no such plans for meetings between North Korea and the United States, which will reportedly be sending Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Donald Trump, to the closing ceremony.
Pence's refusal to interact with Kim Yo Jong or attend a dinner at which he would've been seated with North Korea's ceremonial head of state marked just the latest in a long line of back-and-forths between the U.S. and Kim Jong Un's nation. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations even once suggested that Team USA might skip the 2018 Olympics because of geopolitical differences with North Korea.
