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North Korea to give nuclear report this week: Kyodo
TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea will hand over a long-delayed report of its nuclear activities on June 26 in a step toward disarmament, Kyodo news agency said in a report from Beijing on Monday, citing sources close to six-party talks on the issue.
In response, the United States will begin the process of removing Pyongyang from a list of nations Washington sees as sponsors of terrorism, the report said, a move that would ease trade sanctions.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters the United States had no firm date on which to expect the the long overdue declaration. He said the U.S. envoy to talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons, Christopher Hill, had no current plans to meet North Korean officials.
But Casey repeated Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent comment that a declaration was expected "soon."
Last week, Hill expressed hope that Pyongyang would turn in the documents soon, paving the way for a resumption of stalled disarmament talks.
North Korea shocked the world by testing a nuclear device in October 2006.
The six-party process, involving China, South Korea, Russia and Japan as well as North Korea and the United States, was set up to negotiate nuclear disarmament in return for improved diplomatic ties and economic aid desperately needed by the impoverished state.
Pyonyang had agreed to produce the report on its nuclear programs by the end of last year.
Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura had been set to urge Rice to be cautious about removing North Korea from the terrorism list at a meeting in Kyoto on June 27, but the process will likely have started by that time, Kyodo said.
Earlier on Monday, Korean media reported that Pyongyang wants to invite five foreign news companies to record the destruction of the cooling tower at its aging nuclear complex in a show of its will to abide by the disarmament deal.
Korean officials said the event would take place at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex, about 100 km (60 miles) north of Pyongyang.
(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds and Paul Eckert in Washington; Editing by Ben Tan)
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