South Korea, the host of the games, said it hoped a partnership in sports could contribute to a political thaw after years of high tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

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SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea reached an agreement Wednesday for their athletes to march together under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics next month, a powerful gesture of reconciliation that further complicates President Donald Trump’s strategy for dealing with the nuclear-armed government of Kim Jong Un.

South Korea, the host of the games, said it hoped a partnership in sports could contribute to a political thaw after years of high tensions on the Korean Peninsula. It came even as the prospect of war over the North’s nuclear- and ballistic-missile tests has loomed large.

For the Trump administration, however, the budding détente scrambles its strategy of pressuring the North, with sanctions and threats of military action, to give up its nuclear arsenal. This latest gesture of unity, the most dramatic in a decade, could add to fears in the U.S. that the North is making progress on a more far-reaching agenda.

White House officials warn that the ultimate goal of Kim is to evict U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula and to reunify the two Koreas under a single flag. They have cited that long-held goal to buttress their argument that Kim cannot be deterred peacefully as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War.

While a onetime Olympics ceremony is not a step toward reunification, the image of athletes marching behind a “unified Korea” flag is a symbolic manifestation of what worries Trump’s aides. And the prospect of crowds from North and South Korea cheering together would be a striking contrast to the threats of war from Trump.

Administration officials this week welcomed the announcement but played down its significance, noting that it was not the first time that athletes from the two Koreas had competed together.

“Let’s hope that the experience gives the North Korean athletes a small taste of freedom and that it rubs off,” said Michael Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “North Korean propaganda is in a category all its own,” he added. “It is not surprising that North Korea is sending more cheerleaders and musicians than athletes.”

That emphasis on propaganda, other officials said, was in keeping with North Korea’s longer-term goal of reunification.

In addition to marching together, the two Koreas will field a joint women’s hockey team at the games, which begin Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang. It will be the first time the two countries have combined for an Olympics, and the first unified team of any kind since their athletes played together in a table-tennis championship and a youth soccer tournament in 1991.

The Olympic agreement could bolster President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, who has been pushing for dialogue with the North. “This will be a great opportunity to thaw the frozen relations,” he said during a visit to the training camp for South Korean athletes.

Not everyone is happy about the hockey-team combination. South Korean hockey players and officials, for instance, are annoyed that decision probably will see half the South’s hockey players excluded to make way for the athletes from the North.

“I think there is damage to our players,” Sarah Murray, the coach of South Korea’s women’s hockey team, told reporters. “It’s hard because the players have earned their spots and they think they deserve to go to the Olympics. Then you have people being added later. It definitely affects our players,” she said.

Few expect that the breakthrough in sports diplomacy would lead to a broader relaxation of the decades-old standoff over the North’s nuclear programs. But it provided a welcome reprieve for South Koreans who have grown alarmed and weary over the growing tensions and relentless talk of war.

Trump has threatened the North with “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” should it put the security of Americans and their allies at risk, while Kim has called Trump a lunatic.

The Trump administration has been careful not to dismiss the talks between the North and the South, provided the two sides stick to issues like security at the Olympics. Trump said Wednesday that he would be open to talks with Kim himself, though he questioned the value of such a meeting.

“I’d sit down, but I’m not sure that sitting down will solve the problem,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.

He warned that while North Korea was not yet capable of delivering a ballistic missile to the United States, “they’re close — and they get closer every day.” In the interview, Trump was uncharacteristically critical of Russia, saying it had weakened the global sanctions against North Korea, even as China was doing more.

Moon proposed in June that the two Koreas form a unified team for the Olympics, but the suggestion was not taken seriously until Kim used his New Year’s Day speech to propose dialogue with the South and to discuss his country’s participation in the games.

In an earlier round of negotiations, the North agreed to send a 140-member orchestra to play during the Olympics. On Wednesday, South Korean officials said the North’s delegation would include at least 550 people. The plan is for the North’s athletes to enter the South over a land border Feb. 1.

So far, the only North Korean athletes to qualify for the games are a pairs figure-skating team. North Korea missed an Oct. 31 deadline to accept invitations from South Korea and the International Olympic Committee to join the games. But the international body has said it remains willing to consider wild-card entries for North Korean athletes.