The city fended off competition from Minsk and Tashkent, the capitals of Belarus and Uzbekistan respectively, as well as Eilat in Israel and Anaheim in California.

All five candidates presented to the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Executive Board today, with a spokesman from the world governing body telling insidethegames that Pyongyang won by a reasonable margin.

It comes after North Korea failed in its bid to land the 2017 Junior World Championships, losing out last year to 2020 Olympic hosts Japan.  

Awarding the 2018 event - scheduled to take place from June 11 to 18 - to the East Asian country marks a major move but the IWF is among organisations who think sporting events could help to "open up" the reclusive state.

North Korea will host next year's Asian Championships in a sport which it has excelled in recent years.

They won three Olympic titles at London 2012 and one gold medal in a total haul of six at last year's World Championships in Houston.

Yun Chol Om broke his own clean and jerk world record in the American city to ensure the successful defence of his men’s 56 kilogram crown.

The country, a dictatorship which is rarely visited by foreigners, has also been tipped to host the 2017 Junior World Judo Championships. 

North Korea is still technically at war with its southern neighbour after the Korean War ended with a ceasefire in 1953.

But the countries are thought to want to use sport to better relations.

In 2013, the regime in Pyongyang invited South Korean athletes to compete north of the border, under their own flag, for the first time.

Yesterday, the IWF Executive Board confirmed that North Korea was one of six countries to have Rio 2016 quota places taken from them, owing to multiple positive cases in the qualification period.

As is also the case with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Russia, two quotas have been taken from North Korea, while Belarus have lost one.