The head of the Korea Sports Council and the Korean Olympic Committee expects the inter-Korean summit talks will provide a breakthrough toward the fielding of a joint team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

President Kim Jung-kil said that the two sides did not differ widely on the sending of a joint team but needed to fine-tune athlete selection methods.

Since the 2006 Doha Asian Games, South and North Korea have held four rounds of sports talks but have failed to agree on how they will choose their team members.

Seoul proposed that athletes be selected based on merit while Pyongyang insisted that an equal number be sent from each side.