A senior US envoy told Japan on Saturday that North Korea showed a "forward-looking" stance to resuming dialogue with Tokyo, when he held ice-breaking meetings in Pyongyang.

Stephen Bosworth held talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada shortly after he arrived in Tokyo following his meetings with North Korean officials from December 8 to 10.

Bosworth told Okada that during the meetings, he raised Tokyo's demand for the release of all Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents during the Cold War era.

"Bosworth explained that North Korea showed a forward-looking stance to dialogue between Japan and North Korea on the abduction and other issues," Okada told reporters after he met Bosworth at the foreign ministry.

But Okada said Pyongyang stopped short of providing Bosworth with any proposals for conditions on resuming talks with Tokyo.

The emotive issue has long been a major stumbling block to resuming stalled talks between Tokyo and isolated Pyongyang, which has raised tensions in the region with its repeated missile and nuclear tests.

Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who took power in September ending decades of conservative rule, has vowed that his centre-left government would push to clear up the fate of 12 people who remain missing.

During the meeting with Okada, Bosworth also said that he was able to hold a "quite straight and pragmatic" dialogue with North Korean officials during his stay in Pyongyang.

"(Bosworth) told me that he held a different impression on (North Korea) from the past," Okada said.

"Bosworth told me that it is extremely important for the five countries — all participants of the six-way talks except North Korea — to form a united front and take concerted action firmly," Okada said.

"I don't think we will be immediately close to a breakthrough … but all we have to do is to patiently insist our demand."

Bosworth is to leave for Moscow on Sunday as part of a lightning tour to brief officials in the countries involved in stalled denuclearisation talks with North Korea about his meeting in Pyongyang.

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