NORTH KOREA is set to send a delegation of athletes and performers to next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang after breakthrough talks today.

After meeting their North Korean counterparts for the first time in two years, officials from South Korea indicated an agreement has been reached for the North to attend the Games.

South Korea’s vice unification minister Chun Hae Sung said North Korea “proposed dispatching a high-level delegation of athletes, supporters, art performers, observers, a taekwondo demonstration team and journalists” to the Games.

That news emerged from a media briefing and in a statement from the Ministry of Unification.

South Korean officials also intimated they are confident the two Koreas will march together at the opening ceremony under a unified flag, despite the two nations still technically being at war.

Officials in the North are yet to confirm the deal, which could see the country send a team to a Winter Olympics for the first time since 2010, when two of its athletes competed in Vancouver.

North Korea has sent a team to every summer Olympics since the 1988 Games in Seoul, which it boycotted.

Two North Korean figure skaters — Ryom Tae Ok and Kim Ju Sik — have qualified for Pyeongchang but missed the registration deadline and would need International Olympic Committee (IOC) clearance to compete.

The IOC, which is expected to look favourably on their case, could also hand wildcards to other North Korean competitors, most likely alpine and cross-county skiers, who have competed irregularly and at a low level on the international skiing circuit.

Although snow sports’ world governing body FIS lists 26 North Korean athletes as “active,” their only recent activity was as part of a small delegation at a low-key FIS giant-slalom event in Darbandsar, Iran, last March.

North Korea has won two Winter Olympic medals, silver for speed-skater Han Pil Hwa in Innsbruck in 1964 and bronze for short-track racer Hwang Ok Sil in the women’s 500m in 1992.