Alwaght- South Korea says it will not provide Iranian and North Korean players with high-end Samsung smartphones, which are being handed out to all other athletes at the Winter Olympics, PyeongChang Olympic organizers said on Wednesday.
According to State news agency Yonhap, Samsung Electronics will distribute some 4,000 handsets of its flagship Galaxy Note 8 Olympic Edition among all athletes and International Olympic Committee officials excluding 22 North Korean and four Iranian athletes.
"North Korean and Iranian athletes will be excluded because of existing UN sanctions," a Pyeongchang organizing committee spokeswoman told AFP.
The officials claimed that the smartphones could potentially be used for military purposes, violating the UN sanctions that ban providing the countries with luxury goods and products for such use.
The spokesman, however, did not explain how a device that retails for around 900 USD could be considered as luxury goods.
The decision is set to anger Iran which is a key market for Samsung products in the West Asia, including smartphones and home appliances such as washing machines, televisions, air conditioners and telecommunications equipment.
In 2012, the South Korean electronics and appliance manufacturer raised a storm because of a controversial Israeli ad that made light of a series of explosions and assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran. Iran holds the Israeli spying agency Mossad responsible for the terrorist acts.
The television spot was produced by HOT, an Israeli cable company that was offering the Samsung product free with a subscription.
The advertisement prompted senior Iranian lawmakers to call for a boycott of Samsung which said had nothing to do with the commercial.
In 2013, Samsung got mired in another controversy after Iranian users of mobile applications said the company had notified them that they would no longer have access to the company’s online store.
Owners of mobile phones and tablets said they had received messages via e-mail from the company which said it could not provide access to Samsung Apps in Iran because of “legal barriers”.
