Report: North Korea considering concessions

SEOUL, South Korea –
North Korea is ready to freeze a key nuclear facility and allow international inspectors limited access to the country in exchange for millions of barrels of oil and an easing of U.S. financial restrictions, a Japanese news report said Sunday.

The report came one day after the main U.S. negotiator on North Korea said he believed the next round of six-nation disarmament talks with the communist state starting Thursday in Beijing could produce real progress.


The Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun reported Pyongyang also will demand at the Beijing talks that it be removed from Washington’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The report quoted former U.S. State Department official Joel Wit, who was in Beijing following meetings with chief North Korean arms negotiator Kim Kye Gwan and other senior officials in Pyongyang last week.

It said the North was demanding half a million tons of oil a year