North Korea would suspend operations at its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon within two months in exchange for energy aid under an agreement drafted by China, Kyodo news agency reported today.
The agreement was drawn up after the first day of six-party talks among the two Koreas, Japan, the United States, Russia and China now being held in Beijing.
A series of talks on ending North Korea's nuclear arms programme have been bogged down by mistrust between the North Koreans and the US in particular.
But North Korea 's delegate to six-party talks on its nuclear weapons programme said today there had been agreement on some issues with the US.
Chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan said: "We have been able to reach agreement on some issues", after meeting the US's chief delegate Christopher Hill.
"There are still differences on a series of issues in the overall talks, so we will try to work them out," he said. "You should not try to count the chickens before they hatch, as somebody said."
Since 2003, the talks have brought together host China, South and North Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia in a tortuous effort to curtail Pyongyang's nuclear plans.
Meetings in Berlin last month paved the way for the breakthrough by cooling tensions between the parties that arose after Pyongyang staged its first nuclear test blast last October and the United Nations responded with sanctions.
Envoys to the talks voiced hope that North Korea was now ready to restrict its nuclear ambitions after over three years of stop-start negotiations.
"There is a realisation that the first step we're looking at is a big first step, so to some extent it's going to require a little bit of a jump for them," Mr Hill told reporters after meeting the North Korean delegation.
North Korea is under intense pressure to accept a deal - not least from its communist neighbour and longtime supporter China, which has been angered by the North's nuclear brinkmanship.
Japan's chief negotiator Kenichiro Sasae said the six sides still had much ground to cover. "It's too early to discuss whether the draft agreement is acceptable as each country is to present its ideas and I believe China has its own ideas," Mr Sasae told reporters.
The diplomatic source in Beijing said the draft agreement did not yet contain "clear reference to verification processes" in the initial-phase.