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Lee Jong-sik and Kim Geum-yong won silver medals in table tennis. / AFP
Olympic athletes from North Korea are the only ones at the 2024 Paris Olympics who did not receive South Korean brand Samsung mobile phones as gifts, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) told AFP on Thursday.
As an official sponsor of the Paris Olympics, Samsung Electronics has announced that it will be distributing special “Olympic Games” editions of its Galaxy Z Flip 6 phone to “approximately 17,000 athletes.”
But the IOC assured AFP that no North Korean competitors “received a Samsung phone” but gave no further details.
Hours earlier, the South Korean government explained that the move could violate UN sanctions on North Korea, mainly targeting its nuclear weapons development program.
The foreign minister stressed that the Security Council resolution prohibits the “direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to North Korea of all industrial machinery,” including smartphones.
The alert came after U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Asia reported that North Korean athletes had received the phones.
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 was already in the news on July 31: a photo of a South Korean table tennis player posing in a relaxed atmosphere with other North Korean athletes after receiving their medals went viral amid long-standing tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang, which are technically still at war.
South Korean Lim Jong-hoon, who won mixed doubles bronze with Shin Ok-bin, picked up the phone and took a symbolic selfie with the other medalists — Chinese champions Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha and, most importantly, silver medalists Lee Jong-sik and Kim Jin-yong.
Technically, South Korea and North Korea are at war following a 1950-1953 conflict that ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
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