Terming it as a "serious insult" to international sports, N Korea voiced fears that Japan would exclude athletes from the communist state.
TOKYO: North Korea has lashed out Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics as a "serious insult" to international sports, voicing fears that Japan would exclude athletes from the communist state.
North Korea renewed its grievances with Tokyo just as Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe started a regional tour to build a common front against Pyongyang's plans to test an atom bomb.
Japanese politicians are "keen to give the impression that Japan can host Olympics. This is enough to make a cat laugh," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch late Saturday.
"The Japanese reactionaries' bid to make the Olympics their political plaything is nothing but a serious insult to the sacred Olympic Charter and its idea," it said.
Japan last month refused to admit three North Koreans to Japan for an international synchronized swimming contest in Yokohama, leading the entire team to boycott.
Japan denied entry to the three North Koreans -- an official, a manager and an interpreter for the team -- under sanctions imposed after Pyongyang test-fired seven missiles in July.
"It is as clear as noonday that the Japanese reactionaries will put pressure upon those countries which incur their displeasure and prevent them from participating in the Olympic Games," the North Korean dispatch said.
Japan and North Korea have never established diplomatic relations, largely due to a row over Pyongyang's past kidnappings of Japanese civilians.
North Korea and South Korea have talked of forming a united Olympic team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In 2000 and 2004, the two Koreas marched symbolically together at opening and closing ceremonies but failed to create a joint team.
Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games is the pet project of the capital's governor Shintaro Ishihara, an outspoken nationalist known for his derogatory remarks toward people of neighboring countries.
Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first in Asia, which symbolized Japan's meteoric rise into an economic power from the ashes of World War II.
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