They also found some common ground on the need to resume stalled six-party disarmament negotiations, a foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement published by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

"Both sides agreed to continue to cooperate with each other in the future to narrow down the remaining differences," the spokesman said.

The statement comes as US envoy Stephen Bosworth is set to leave Seoul after a three-day visit to Pyongyang. Bosworth goes on to Beijing on Friday, Tokyo on Saturday and Moscow on Sunday.

"Through working and frank discussion the two sides deepened the mutual understanding, narrowed their differences and found not a few common points," the spokesman said.

"They also reached a series of common understandings of the need to resume the six-party talks and the importance of implementing" the September 19 joint statement, he said.

In September 2005 the North vowed in a six-party joint statement to scrap its nuclear weaponry in exchange for aid, diplomatic benefits and talks on a permanent peace pact for the peninsula.

The talks covered wide-ranging issues such as normalisation of relations, economic and energy assistance, denuclearisation and the proposed conclusion of a peace agreement, he said.

In Seoul on Thursday, Bosworth said the United States and North Korea agreed on the need to resume six-party talks. But he said it was unclear when the North would return to the forum.

The envoy's visit was nonetheless described as "quite positive" by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said the US approach was one of "strategic patience".

"For a preliminary meeting, it was quite positive.... The approach that our administration is taking is of strategic patience in close coordination with our six-party allies," Clinton said.

"And I think that making it clear to the North Koreans what we had expected and how we were moving forward is exactly what was called for."

Bosworth's three-day visit was the first official contact between Washington and Pyongyang since President Barack Obama took office in January, pledging direct diplomacy with America's adversaries.

Analysts believe Pyongyang's main goal is to negotiate a peace treaty with Washington, which says this must be discussed within the six-party format.

"Through its statement today, North Korea is sending a positive message to the outside world," Seoul's Dongguk University professor Kim Yong-Hyun said.

"While seeking to maintain momentum for dialogue, North Korea is emphasising its demand for a peace treaty with the United States," he said.

The Korean peninsula is still technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The United States who fought on South Korea's side during the war still stations 28,500 troops in the South.

The six-party talks group the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia.

In September 2005 the North vowed in a six-party joint statement to scrap its nuclear weaponry in exchange for aid, diplomatic benefits and talks on a permanent peace pact for the peninsula.

But in April, angry at international censure of its long-range rocket launch, the North declared the six-party talks "dead". It later said it had resumed making weapons-grade plutonium.

In May it staged its second nuclear test since 2006 and followed up with missile launches in July, attracting tougher UN sanctions.

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