SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's culture and sports minister said Wednesday that his country will make all efforts to turn an ongoing security crisis on the Korean Peninsula into peace by hosting next year's Winter Olympics in the country's west region.
"Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is a good opportunity to send a message of peace and reconciliation to the world," Do Jongwhan, Minister and Culture, Sports and Tourism, said at a meeting with foreign correspondents in Seoul.
He anticipated the winter sports event becoming a chance to "turn security crisis into peace" as South Korea made efforts to encourage the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to join it and cooperate with the international community for an event without terror fears.
The South Korea-hosted winter sports event will be held in February next year in Pyeongchang, Gangwon province.
Seoul has repeatedly asked Pyongyang to participate in the event, but the DPRK side has kept mum about the offer.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) called for South Korea to simplify a communications channel with the DPRK into the IOC in order to more effectively encourage the DPRK to attend the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, according to the sports and culture minister.
Do said that though Pyongyang's participation could not be answered yet, a possibility for it remained as there are many possibilities under discussion, including the use of wild card.
Asked about worry among some of participating nations about rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the minister said that South Korea was cooperating with the international community for a terror-free event.
A week earlier, South Korea submitted a "truce resolution" to the UN General Assembly to appeal for a suspension of any conflict in the world during the Pyeongchang Olympic period. The United Nations has, since 1993, adopted an Olympic truce resolution to honor peace, one of the Olympic purposes.
The minister said his country was making efforts to pass the resolution through the UN on Nov. 13 as scheduled.
Do said he was worried much about the escalated tensions on the peninsula, caused by the war of rhetoric between the United States and the DPRK, but he said the current government under President Moon Jae-in can manage the crisis peacefully.
He added that the DPRK would hardly dare to venture to provoke so many participating nations of the sports event, stressing that there has never been any terrorist attack seen in South Korea.
Tensions ran high on the peninsula after U.S. President Donald Trump said in his debut UN speech that the United States would have no choice but to "totally destroy" the DPRK if Pyongyang continues to threaten the U.S. and its allies.
In response to the Trump's UN speech, top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un issued a rare statement that warned the U.S. of "the highest-level of hardline countermeasure in history."
U.S. strategic bombers and fighter escorts flew Saturday night in international airspace over waters off the DPRK's east coast in a show of military might, and Pyongyang denounced it as a declaration of war.
Meanwhile, the culture minister said a probe into a so-called "artist blacklist" compiled under previous governments was expanded into the Lee Myung-bak administration as new documents were unveiled by the spy agency and the presidential Blue House.
He said one prosecutor was recently dispatched to the culture ministry to help look into the alleged blacklisting of left-leaning culture figures under the conservative governments.
The government of impeached President Park Geun-hye created a list of more than 9,000 left-leaning artists to ban entertainers critical of the government from the mainstream media. A top aide close to Park was sentenced to three years in jail in July for the blacklisting.
According to an internal probe by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the Lee government also made a blacklist of left-leaning artists, including filmmakers, actors, singers, novelists and TV personalities.
A group of celebrities, including veteran actor Moon Sung-keun, comedian Kim Mi-hwa and actress Kim Gyu-ri, on Monday filed complaints against former presidents Park and Lee with prosecutors to ask for an investigation into the blacklist allegation.
