North Korea has accepted a list of South Korean reporters to visit their nuclear testing site after a days-long tug of war with Seoul, South Korea's unification ministry says.
North Korea invited a handful of media from a number of countries to witness the dismantling of the Punggye-ri testing site to uphold its pledge to discontinue nuclear tests.
The invitation to witness the dismantling of the Punggye-ri site was seen as an indication that North Korea's unexpected offer to end its nuclear tests still held despite renewed diplomatic uncertainty.
Reporters from news outlets from the other countries arrived in the North Korean port city of Wonsan on Tuesday, where they are waiting to be guided to the testing site for the event, set for between Wednesday and Friday.
The unification ministry welcomed Pyongyang's decision to accept the eight South Korean reporters, saying they would fly direct to Wonsan on Wednesday from an air base south of Seoul using a government transport plane.
"We hope for an early realisation of complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula through a North Korea-US summit and dialogue of various levels, starting with the abolition of the nuclear test site," ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun told a news briefing.
Invited members of foreign media said North Korean authorities told them the weather was too bad for travel, but a journalist with Britain's Sky News said on Twitter they may depart later on Wednesday for Punggye-ri, more than 200km from Wonsan.
North Korea's last-minute acceptance of South Korean reporters came amid concerns that leader Kim Jong Un was starting to back away from his promise to dismantle the site.
