North Korean athletes first batch arrived in South Korea Thursday for this month's Asian Games after taking a rare flight across the sensitive maritime border.
The S Korea Security was tight as an Air Koryo plane carrying 94 athletes and officials from Pyongyang landed in the South's main international airport in the western port city of Incheon, close to Seoul.
There are South Koreans made placard to welcome the NK athletes reading "Welcome North Korean athletes!" waved "one Korea" flags showing the unified Korean peninsula in the waiting hall of the airport.
They chanted "We are from one nation!" as the North Koreans, wearing white jackets and badges bearing the image of late leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, walked into buses outside the airport.
The North Koreans, escorted by South Korean police, left for the Asiad athletes' village, without commenting.
The North agreed to send its athletes but withdrew the proposed participation of female cheerleaders, who had taken part in three previous international sporting events in the South and proved a major ticket draw each time.
Direct contact of any sort between the two Koreas has been extremely limited since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
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