Choue told insidethegames earlier this week that the potential performance of World Taekwondo’s Demonstration Team at this year’s ITF World Championships in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang would be the main focus of a meeting held yesterday with ITF counterpart, North Korea’s Ri Yong-son, in Seoul.

A written agreement for the Pyeongchang 2018 performance is due to be signed during the Championships, where a World Taekwondo delegation is scheduled to be in attendance from September 16 to 19.  

It will be subject to approval from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Pyeongchang 2018 organisers. 

"Yesterday we had a short meeting with them about the future cooperation and with the legal due process, and if the Organising Committee agrees, World Taekwondo will invite the ITF Demonstration Team to have a joint demonstration performance at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games," Choue said at a press conference alongside IOC President Thomas Bach.

"We have agreed verbally, but there is a certain due process.

"We have to discuss it with the IOC and also the Organising Committee for Pyeongchang."

Choue also spoke of how taekwondo’s newly-approved Grand Slam Champions’ Series, aimed at professionalising and upgrading the sport’s commercial appeal and media profile, will be open to ITF athletes.

"This is another big step forwards to collaborating with each other and we are going to open the Grand Slam events from next year - this is very much like a professional taekwondo championships," he said.

"We will discuss it with the competitions, but as long as they follow our competition rules and regulations, we are going to open them to ITF athletes.

"In 2020, Para-taekwondo is on the official programme of the Paralympics Games.

"That’s also kind of a blue ocean area so we are open to ITF Para-athletes.

"They are more than welcome to join the Paralympic Games.

"And another one is we just successfully launched, the Beach Taekwondo Poomsae Championships on the island of Rhodes in Greece.

"That’s also a blue ocean area so ITF athletes can participate at our Beach Taekwondo Poomsae Championships if they follow our competition rules and regulations.

"I think those kinds of things mark big progress between the two organisations and we wish to seek more."

In what has been described as a "show of taekwondo unity and sportive goodwill", a North Korean demonstration team from the ITF performed alongside the World Taekwondo Demonstration Team during the Opening Ceremony of the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships here on Saturday (June 24), and is due to do so again at the Closing Ceremony later today. 

Also due to be in attendance at the Closing Ceremony is Bach, who was asked at the press conference about the possibility of a unified Korean team at Pyeongchang 2018.

The German spoke of his support for the idea yesterday, describing it as being "in the spirit of Olympism".

His visit to South Korea comes less than a week after the country's President Moon Jae-in encouraged the participation of North Korea at Pyeongchang 2018 during a speech here at the Opening Ceremony of the World Championships.

Moon, who was elected as the country’s President last month after a cronyism scandal led to Park Geun-hye being impeached, has pledged greater dialogue with the neighbouring country in a bid to reduce tensions between the two nations.

"The position of the IOC is very clear," Bach said today.

"We have invited already in February this year the National Olympic Committee of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to participate in the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang in 2018.

"We also support some athletes from North Korea in order to assist them to qualify for the Olympic Games.

"On the other hand, we have noted with great appreciation the message of President Moon to see the Olympic Games as a possibility for dialogue and reconciliation."

Bach is due to meet Moon on Monday (July 3).

World Taekwondo is currently the only taekwondo body recognised by the IOC.

But the ITF is the older body having been founded in 1966 by Choi Hong Hi in Seoul.

Following his exile from South Korea by the Park Chung-hee administration, Choi moved to Canada and established the ITF headquarters in Toronto, before moving them to Vienna in 1985.

North Korea's sole IOC member Chang Ung was elected President of the ITF after Choi's death in 2002, but was replaced by Ri in 2015.

In August 2014, Choue and Chang signed a Protocol of Accord during the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing.

One year later, a 22-member ITF demonstration team, including 13 North Koreans, performed at the Opening Ceremony of the World Taekwondo Championships in Russian city Chelyabinsk.

Chang, Ri, Choue and Bach have all been closely involved in negotiations for continued cooperation.

Ri, Choue and Bach are all due to meet here.