BEIJING (AP) – International negotiators reached a tentative agreement on initial steps toward North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, the first concrete progress after more than three years of talks, the U.S. envoy said early Tuesday.

The draft agreement, worked out at the latest round of six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear program, contained commitments on disarmament and energy assistance along with “initial actions” to be taken by certain deadlines, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said. He said working groups will be set up, hopefully in a month, laying out a framework for dealing with regional tensions.

Hill declined to give further details of the draft.

The agreement could herald the first step toward disarmament since the talks began in 2003; the rounds have been marked by repeated delays and deadlock. The process reached its lowest point in October when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test explosion, alarming the world and triggering U.N. sanctions.

Hill said the draft agreement still must be reviewed by the home governments of the six countries at the talks, but he was upbeat about it. He said he was in “constant communication” with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“We feel it’s an excellent draft, I don’t think we’re the problem,” he said.

North Korea did not immediately make any public comment, but South Korea’s envoy Chun Yung-woo said he believed the proposal would be acceptable to Pyongyang.

Chun said the five other countries agreed to evenly share the energy aid outlined under the deal.

However, Japan was more noncommittal. Its envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, said it was “too early to tell” whether Tokyo was satisfied.

Hill said the parties to the talks will meet again later Tuesday.

The last major agreement on the issue was in September 2005 when North Korea was promised energy aid and security guarantees in exchange for a pledge to abandon its nuclear programs. But since then, talks on implementing that agreement snarled on other issues and the plan went nowhere.

Hill has repeatedly said he hoped a resolution would help improve stability in a region filled with bitter historical disputes. The two Koreas remain technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

“We’re trying to do more than just do denuclearization for energy,” Hill said. “We’re trying to address some of the underlying problems.”

Though he did not provide specifics, North Korea has demanded improved relations with the United States. Japan and North Korea remain fiercely antagonistic in part because of North Korea’s acknowledged but unresolved abductions of Japanese citizens.

In the last couple of days, the talks had appeared to be on the verge of foundering and envoys made clear that their frustration level was rising while their patience was growing thin. The current round was to conclude on Monday but as they progressed toward a deal, negotiators extended it late into the night and into the early hours of Tuesday.

The current talks began Thursday on a promising note after the United States and North Korea held an unusual meeting last month in Germany and signaled a willingness to compromise.

But negotiations quickly became mired on the issue of how much energy aid the impoverished and isolated communist country would get as an inducement for initial steps toward disarmament.

“It’s always 3 yards, 3 yards, 3 yards, and it’s always fourth and one. Then you make a first down and do 3 more yards,” Hill said early Tuesday, using a football metaphor. “It’s painful.”

During the days of arduous negotiations, he said “everybody has had to make some changes to narrow the differences.”

Some delegates at the talks _ which also include China, Russia and South Korea _ had called North Korea’s demands for energy excessive.

South Korean and Japanese media reports gave varying accounts of how much energy North Korea was demanding, including up to 2 million kilowatts of electricity or 2 million tons of heavy fuel oil.

Chinese envoy Wu Dawei told a visiting Japanese lawmaker that North Korea had agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor and submit a list of its atomic facilities. But the size of the energy aid Pyongyang would get in return was still undecided, the lawmaker, Fukushiro Nukaga, told reporters Monday.

Under a 1994 U.S.-North Korea disarmament agreement, the North was to receive 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year before construction was completed of two nuclear reactors that would be able to generate 2 million kilowatts of electricity.

That deal fell apart in late 2002 when the U.S. accused the North of conducting a secret uranium enrichment program, sparking the latest nuclear crisis.