N Korea pulls out of student games
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The games begin in Daegu on Thursday and involve 175 countries.
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SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea has pulled out of the world university games in South Korea, citing safety concerns after anti-North protests in Seoul last week.
Problems with a chartered aircraft was the reason North Korea initially gave for the failure of its 218-member delegation to arrive in the South for the August 21-31 event.
But on Monday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) blamed the South for not being able to guarantee its students' safety.
"We cannot let our athletes go to a dangerous place where the participants' safety is not guaranteed," a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland -- the organization that handles ties with Seoul -- was quoted by KCNA as saying.
The KCNA statement was reported by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
The spokesman said South Korean authorities erred by allowing an anti-North protest to continue in Seoul on August 15 while breaking up a simultaneous demonstration against the United States.
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The Liberation Day protest in Seoul angered North Korea.
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"The South Korean authorities should apologize officially for the August 15 riot," the KCNA report said.
This year's university games begin on Thursday in the South Korean city of Daegu with more than 11,000 athletes from 175 countries taking part in the 11-day event.
Organizers were hoping the participation of the North Koreans would attract public attention to the games' movement as well as provide peace overtures to the long-running North Korea-U.S. standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Six-nation talks aimed at resolving the nuclear crisis are set to begin in Beijing next week involving China, North Korea, the U.S., South Korea, Russia and Japan.
