North Korea Olympians not given Samsung phones: IOC

Bronze medalists South Korea’s Lim Jonghoon (R) takes a selfie picture with his mobile as he celebrates on the podium with : gold medalists China’s Wang Chuqin (rear 2nd L) and China’s Sun Yingsha (front 2nd L), silver medalists North Korea’s Ri Jong Sik (L), and North Korea’s Kim Kum Yong (front 2nd L) and bronze medallist and teammate South Korea’s Shin Yubin (2nd R) at the end of their mixed table tennis doubles competition at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the South Paris Arena in Paris on July 30, 2024. | Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP

Seoul, South Korea – North Korean Olympians have not received Samsung smartphones, unlike athletes from other countries, the IOC told AFP on Thursday, hours after Seoul suggested that providing them the phones could violate UN sanctions against the nuclear-armed North.

South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics, an official partner of the Olympics, earlier announced it was providing an Olympic edition of its advanced smartphone, the foldable Galaxy Z Flip6, to “all approximately 17,000” athletes participating in the Paris Games this year.

The company and the International Olympic Committee have promoted “victory selfies” in Paris, in which medallists on the podium take group selfies using the Galaxy Z Flip6.

North Korean table tennis silver medallists participated in one such group podium selfie last week alongside South Korean bronze winners — a rare inter-Korean encounter that went viral.

But the South Korean government said Thursday that providing Samsung smartphones to North Korean Olympians could violate United Nations sanctions related to Pyongyang’s weapons programme, following a report by US-funded outlet Radio Free Asia that North Korea, like other nations, had received the phones for its athletes.

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But the IOC told AFP in a statement late Thursday that North Korean Olympians “have not received the Samsung phones”.

The IOC did not give any further details.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North recently announcing the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border.

Nuclear-armed and isolated North Korea is barred by multiple UN resolutions from tests using ballistic missile technology.

Seoul’s foreign ministry said earlier Thursday that a UN Security Council resolution bans “direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to North Korea of all industrial machinery”.

“Smartphones are considered prohibited items under this resolution,” it said.

The ministry added that Seoul was “making diplomatic efforts in coordination with the international community” to ensure resolutions against the North were “thoroughly implemented”.

South Korea has responded to the North’s increased weapons testing and trash-carrying balloon bombardments this year by resuming propaganda broadcasts along the border, fully suspending a tension-reducing military deal and restarting live-fire drills near the border.

The broadcasts, which infuriate Pyongyang due to its extreme sensitivity about its citizens accessing information from the democratic South, included a report on the global sales performance of Samsung smartphones, as well as songs by K-pop megastars BTS, according to Yonhap news agency.

During the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, North Korea declined to accept Samsung smartphones offered by the Olympics organisers, who required that the North’s athletes return the phones before leaving the country, according to Yonhap.