IOC confident of 2018 Olympic games success

The International Olympic Committee says the escalating North Korean crisis has not raised any security threat for next year’s Pyeongchang 2018 winter Olympics in South Korea.

Speaking hours after the United Nations Security Council unanimously stepped up sanctions against North Korea over the country’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test IOC President Thomas Bach remains confident.

“We are appealing that diplomacy and peace will prevail there on the Korean peninsula. And there is also, so far, there is not even a hint that there is a threat for the security of the games in this context of the tensions between North Korea and some other countries,” International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, told reporters.

IOC officials hope a diplomatic solution is reached before the Games start next February and the doors remain open for the participation of North Korean athletes. None of its athletes have yet met the qualification standards.

The Pyeongchang Games, the first Winter Olympics in Asia to hold outside Japan, will run from the 9th to the 25th of February.