Former figure skating champion Kim Yu-na speaks at the U.N. general assembly as an honorary ambassador to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. [Yonhap News Photo]
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the peaceful running of the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea's Pyeongchang.
The resolution, also known as the "Olympic Truce", is adopted every two years ahead of the Summer and Winter Olympic games to declare a truce and safe passage for all participants during the athletic events.
The Pyeongchang Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are slated to run next year from February 9-25 and March 9-18, respectively, against the backdrop of heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
In the resolution, titled "Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal," the General Assembly expresses "its expectation that Pyeongchang 2018 will be a meaningful opportunity to foster an atmosphere of peace, development, tolerance and understanding on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia".
It also "urges member states to observe the Olympic Truce individually and collectively, within the framework of the Charter of the United Nations," throughout the period running from seven days before the start of the Olympic Games until seven days after the end of the Paralympic Games.
In a speech before the assembly, Kim Yu-na, a former South Korean figure skating champion and honorary ambassador to the Pyeongchang games, touted the Olympic spirit.
"The Olympic Charter states the goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity," she said. "I strongly believe this is the spirit of the Olympic Games and it represents the potential and the power of sport."
Kim said she experienced "the same spirit and power" as a 10-year-old watching the South Korean and North Korean delegations jointly enter the arena at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
(Yonhap)
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