With the two Koreas having confirmed a slew of plans for cross-border sports exchange last month, July is to see many of the plans materializing.

Inter-Korean basketball games this week at the North’s capital of Pyongyang will kick off a series of sport exchanges, signaling the beginning of a summer filled with South-North friendlies and joint teams. 

Four basketball games will be held over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, with both male and female teams of the two Koreas playing four friendly matches, according to Seoul.

Seoul on Friday delivered a roster of players to North Korea for the basketball games. A 100-member delegation led by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon will depart for Pyongyang on Tuesday. The group will include 50 female and male athletes as well as journalists.

The games are expected to draw media attention, as Kim, who is known to be an avid basketball fan, proposed holding the games during the inter-Korean summit in late April. Whether Kim will attend the games has yet to be confirmed.

The 18th Asian Games in Indonesia co-hosted by Jakarta and Palembang from Aug. 18 to Sept. 2 is expected to be a more global stage for the two Koreas to showcase their renewed bond.

According to the Olympic Council of Asia, the two Koreas agreed to field joint teams in three sports and six events at this year’s games. They will compete together against global rivals in basketball, dragon boat racing and rowing.

There will be a unified team in women’s basketball; men’s and women’s dragon boating, a canoe discipline; and lightweight men’s four, lightweight men’s eight and lightweight women’s double sculls events in rowing.

The Koreas have previously fielded joint teams at world championships for table tennis and youth soccer, but the women’s ice hockey team at the PyeongChang Olympics in February marked the first joint Korean team at an international multisport competition.

Following North Korea’s participation in the PyeongChang Olympics, ideas for expanding cross-border sports exchange were floated, but it was after the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on April 27 that the ideas began to take shape.

A joint declaration issued after the summit included a clause to demonstrate the two Koreas’ “collective wisdom, talents and solidarity by jointly participating in international sports events, such as the 2018 Asian Games.”

It started to take further shape at the inter-Korean sports talks held on June 18, which was held as part of joint efforts to implement the April agreement. Recalling the pingpong diplomacy between the US and China in the early 1970s, experts have pointed out that sports exchanges have often helped smooth out relations between nations, and expects the upcoming events to do the same for inter-Korean ties.

By Jung Min-kyung (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)