Other delegation members did not respond to questions about their feelings about the South Korean trip, but looked relaxed, pool reporters said.

Aboard sedans and a travel bus prepared by the South Korean government at the border area, they departed to PyeongChang.

The North's first-ever participation in a Winter Paralympic Games comes one day after South and North Korea unveiled a landmark agreement to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a South Korean delegation led by chief presidential security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, agreed to hold a summit meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas in late April and establish a hotline between them.

The North also expressed willingness to suspend weapons tests and discuss denuclearization with Washington.

Jong Hyon, a vice chairman of the central committee of the Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, is leading a 20-member athletic delegation that includes six athletes. Kim Mun-chol, chairman of the same federation, represents a four-member delegation of the National Paralympic Committee.

The athletic delegation included four athletes who will sit in on Paralympic matches; one of them was aged nine. Three South Korean officials including a director-general from the Unification Ministry went out to the border area to greet the North Korean delegation, pool reporters said. (Yonhap)