A delegation of 39 players and staff from North Korea’s Naegohyang Women’s FC arrived at Incheon International Airport on Sunday, the first visit by North Korean athletes to South Korea since December 2018, the Associated Press reported. The team, which will face South Korea’s Suwon FC Women in the semifinals of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Champions League on Wednesday, did not speak to reporters, though some activists shouted “Welcome! Welcome!” and bystanders filmed their arrival.

The visit revives memories of past sports exchanges that briefly warmed ties — North Korea sent athletes to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics — but experts warn against interpreting it as a signal of improving relations.

“We should be cautious about interpreting their visit to South Korea as a sign of an improvement in South-North relations,” Lee Wootae, a senior research fellow at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, said in a recent report. “It would be more accurate to view this as a limited South-North Korean contact within the framework of international sports.”

Since the collapse of U.S.-led denuclearization diplomacy in 2019, Kim Jong Un has called South Korea the North’s “principal enemy” and taken steps to eliminate the concept of shared statehood, advancing what he calls a hostile “two-state” system on the peninsula. Observers believe Kim is wary of the South’s cultural influence and sees little value in engagement with Seoul as a pathway to dealing with Washington.

The South Korean government of liberal President Lee Jae Myung, which has championed rapprochement, said it would provide financial support to civic groups organizing a 3,000-member squad to cheer for both teams. The groups, in a joint statement, said: “We will enthusiastically cheer for them by chanting the names of both teams and their players, while faithfully adhering to AFC guidelines.”

North Korea is a powerhouse in women’s soccer, having won the Under-17 Women’s World Cup four times and the Under-20 Women’s World Cup three times. Naegohyang defeated Suwon 3-0 in the group stage in Myanmar last November. Melbourne City FC and Tokyo Verdy Beleza meet in the other semifinal, with the final on Saturday in Suwon.

The North Koreans’ last such visit was for a table tennis event in December 2018, during a flurry of cooperation programs that followed the Pyeongchang Olympics. That thaw ended after the Hanoi summit between Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019 over disputes about sanctions relief.