North Korea is set to send a delegation to the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, scheduled for next September.
Kyodo News reported on Wednesday that North Korea has submitted a letter of intent to the organizing committee of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
The report indicates that North Korea plans to dispatch a team of 260 to 270 members, including 150 athletes competing in 17 sports, with soccer among them.
The Aichi-Nagoya Games, which mark Japan’s first hosting of the Asian Games in 32 years since the 1994 Hiroshima Games, are set to commence on September 19 next year. The closing ceremony is scheduled for October 4.
According to the report, the Japanese government is carefully considering the decision to allow North Korea’s participation in the event.
Japan has generally banned entry for North Korean nationals as part of its independent sanctions in response to North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches.
However, exceptions have been made for sports exchanges. Last year, Japan permitted the entry of North Korea’s men’s and women’s soccer teams for the final qualifiers of the 2024 Paris Olympics in February and the second round of Asian qualifiers for the 2026 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in March.
North Korea opted out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This decision led to sanctions from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), resulting in North Korea’s exclusion from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Since then, North Korea has reopened its doors to international sports, sending delegations to events such as the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics, and the 2025 Harbin Winter Asian Games.