SEOUL: 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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