Washington: North Korea has confirmed directly to the Trump administration that it is willing to negotiate with the United States over potential denuclearisation, administration officials said.

The confirmation on Sunday evening, US time, offers the administration greater assurances that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is committed to a potential meeting with President Donald Trump by the end of next month.

"The US has confirmed that Kim Jong-un is willing to discuss the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula," an administration official said.

South Korean emissaries, in a visit to the White House last month, had presented Kim's invitation to meet with Trump, who quickly agreed.

But Pyongyang has been silent publicly since then about a summit, even as Kim visited Beijing earlier this month in his first visit outside North Korea since assuming control of the country after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011. During that visit Kim was reported by Beijing as having committed to denuclearisation. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the North has confirmed the offer to the United States.