United in support of peace
The PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games provided a shining example of how sport and the Olympic ideal can build a “peaceful and better world”, in the words of the Olympic Truce Resolution adopted for this edition.
It was in that spirit of peace that athletes from the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea paraded side by side at the Opening Ceremony, while the two nations combined to field a unified women’s ice hockey team, which comprised 35 players drawn from both sides of the border and competed as Korea.
The rapprochement between the two countries in the sporting arena helped improve political dialogue between the two Koreas, with three inter-Korean summits taking place in 2018 alone. Tense relations between the USA and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea also thawed, with their two leaders meeting in a two-day summit in Vietnam the following year.
It was also in 2019, exactly a year to the day after the XXIII Olympic Winter Games opened, that the inaugural PyeongChang Global Peace Forum took place. Held at the Alpensia Convention Centre and organised by the Pyeongchang 2018 Legacy Foundation, the three-day event featured sessions on disarmament, poverty, gender and human rights and sought to build on the progress made at the Games, with discussions on ways to promote a peaceful future on the Korean peninsula and around the world.
This led to the drafting of the PyeongChang Declaration for Peace 2019, which asked governments around the world to step up their commitment to enforcing international disarmament laws, called on the two Koreas to formally end hostilities and embrace lasting peace, and urged the UN to take steps to uphold women’s rights.
This first forum created the framework for the PyeongChang Agenda for Peace 2030, which was adopted at the second iteration in 2020. Further editions of the forum were held in 2021 and 2022.
The Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea remain in a state of unresolved conflictthe Korean War having ended in 1953 with no peace agreement signed. Relations between the two neighbouring countries have been strained ever since.