GUATEMALA - A winning bid by South Korea's Pyeongchang to host the 2014 Winter Olympics would bring it closer to communist North Korea, resulting in a unified team and boosting reconciliation on the peninsula, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on Sunday.

Pyeongchang, Austria's Salzburg and Russia's Sochi are vying for the 2014 Games, a decision on which will be taken on July 4 during an International Olympic Committee session in Guatemala.

"Not only will they (Koreas) be entering together in the opening ceremony but it is our hope they will participate at the Games as a unified team," Roh told a small group of agency reporters.

Roh arrived in Guatemala earlier on Sunday to support the South Korean city's bid during the last days of campaigning before the IOC decision.

"A formation of a unified team will have two meanings: it will be the result of accelerated and closer cooperative relations between the two Koreas and will be an important milestone at how far Korea has come; it will add impetus in bringing reconciliation to our relations," he said.

South Korea and North Korea are technically still at war having ended their conflict in 1953 with no peace agreement.

While they have marched together in past Olympics, they have so far failed to agree on a unified team that would represent the peninsula at international Games.

Expectations they would march as one team faltered ahead of last year's Asian Games in Doha and talks for a joint team for the Beijing Olympics have yet to yield any significant progress.

"We are negotiating with North Korea to make possible the participation for both Koreas to take part as a unified team," he said.

"At the Winter Olympics in 2014, by that time inter-Korean relations will have matured."

Roh said South Korea -- which has already won the right to host the 2011 world athletics championships and the 2014 Asian Games -- has won the trust of international organisations with its past major sporting achievements, which include the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 2002 soccer World Cup, co-hosted with Japan.

"We believe that enhancement of sport is among the most important national strategies," Roh said, adding the message he will convey to the IOC this week will be that South Korea can host a "very successful Winter Games".

"The Korean people are ready to go crazy over these Olympic Games and so we are very confident that we will be able to have very successful Games," said Roh, who admitted he could barely skate on ice.

Should the bid fail however, Roh said jokingly he feared "for my safety and the safety of my advisors."