Earlier this month North Korea announced that they would be stepping out of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics due to concern for the COVID-19 pandemic. This will be the first time since their 1988 Olympics boycott that North Korea will not be participating in the Olympics. 

However, the International Olympic Committee has said that they have not received the official documents regarding North Korea leaving the Olympics. This does leave  unanswered questions, but those might be answered in the future. 

What concerns people more are the implications for diplomacy with North Korea this year. The Olympics are the best time to get in contact with the otherwise reserved country. 

As The New York Times puts it in their April 5th article, “North Korea’s decision deprives South Korea and other nations of a rare opportunity to establish official contact with the isolated country.” And many seem to hold this opinion, as the Associated Press says, “The North Korean announcement, three months before the Games begin, could signal the Pyongyang is rejecting a repeated push by Seoul to use the Olympics to create a mood for dialogue.”

There’s no telling what can happen now — the world will just have to wait and see.