North Korea will send its first batch of athletes competing at the Asian Games south of the border about a week before the event’s opening ceremony, officials here said Monday.

North Korea plans to send 150 athletes to the Asian Games, which will open in the South Korean city of Incheon on Sept. 19 for a 16-day run. The men’s and women’s football tournaments, however, will kick things off on Sept. 14. With North Korea participating in both, its footballers will arrive on Sept. 11, according to the officials.

“A North Korean official told us that the country’s athletes will first arrive here on Sept. 11, and then others will be coming in on the 16th, the 19th, the 22nd and the 28th,” an official with the Asian Games’ organizing committee said. (Yonhap)