North Korea has agreed with the United States to resolve a months-old standoff through a face-saving private acknowledgement of US allegations over its nuclear programmes, a report said Friday.

Pyongyang missed a deadline in a six-nation disarmament deal to declare all nuclear programmes by the end of last year. But the chief US and North Korean negotiators reported progress at a meeting Tuesday in Singapore.

Japan's Kyodo News, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources, said the two sides struck a tentative deal under which North Korea would privately acknowledge two US allegations -- that it has a secret uranium programme and shared nuclear technology with Syria.

North Korea would submit a document to the other nations in the six-way talks that it "acknowledges" and takes "seriously" the two US assertions, which have been key sticking points, Kyodo News said.

But the document would not be made public, avoiding embarrassment for the communist state, which has steadfastly denied that it has proliferated or secretly enriched uranium.

North Korea has an acknowlegded plutonium programme, which it used to detonate an atom bomb in October 2006.

US President George W. Bush's administration is seen as considering the North Korea disarmament deal a key diplomatic success in its final months in office.

Kyodo News said the agreement reached in Singapore was a first step in jump-starting the dormant six-nation talks, but quoted an unnamed Asian diplomat stressing it was "not a final deal."

"While there is movement in the process compared to the time when it was completely stalled, we have yet to reach a point where we can say when we could hold the next six-party talks," the diplomat was quoted as saying.

Kyodo News also said the United States had reiterated to North Korea it would remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if the process moves forward.

A delisting would allow the impoverished state to seek multinational loans. But the move is steadfastly opposed by Japan, which has tense relations with Pyongyang due in part to the regime's past kidnappings of Japanese civilians.

The six-nation talks involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.