Two Koreas Getting It Together?

Amid a newfound spirit of cooperation and with the prodding of the International Olympic Committee, North and South Korea have moved steps closer to a joint march in the opening ceremonies in September’s Sydney Games.

But, IOC officials cautioned after the committee’s ruling Executive Board met Friday in Switzerland, there is no firm deal yet. Logistical details remain to be ironed out, they said.

A wire service report Friday said that a joint march was set. But IOC officials said they are awaiting a response from North Korea to a proposal calling for the two teams to parade behind the Olympic flag.

“It’s not sure,” President Juan Antonio Samaranch said in a telephone call from IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Added Francois Carrard, the IOC’s director general, “We still have hopes it could be--hopefully one team, one delegation, at the opening ceremony parading.”

If the Korean delegations do march together on Sept. 15, the parade will serve as a potent symbol of reunification hopes in the long-divided Korean peninsula.

In advance of last month’s historic summit between South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, capital of the communist North, Samaranch sent a letter to each, advocating a joint march in Sydney.

Samaranch proposed that all Korean athletes march behind the Olympic flag, followed by the flags of their nations.

South Korea quickly accepted.

On Thursday, the IOC received a response from the head of the North Korean national Olympic committee, Pak Myong Chol. In a letter, he said he didn’t see the need for two national flags, given that the ultimate goal is unification.

On Friday, the Executive Board sent a letter to North Korea saying one flag--the Olympic flag--would be fine. Now, Olympic officials said, they must hear back from Pyongyang.

South Korea is amenable to this proposal, said Kim Un Yong, an influential IOC member from the South.

“The South is ready,” Kim said in a phone call. “Not only in sports. In all important points.”

South and North played table tennis in Pyongyang on Friday in the first sports exchange since the summit.

“The ambience is different from a few years ago or one year ago or three months ago,” Kim said.