NORTH overnight called for a peace treaty with the US to formally close the Korean War.

The call was made as a senior North Korean official arrived in New York for rare discussions with the US on the stalled denuclearisation talks, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The US still has more than 28,000 troops in South Korea, close to six decades after the 1950-1953 war on the peninsular ended in a cease-fire, the report said. A peace treaty is a long-held goal for Pyongyang.

"Concluding a peace agreement may be the first step for settling the Korean issue, including denuclearisation," the north's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.

Agreeing a peace accord "will provide an institutional guarantee for wiping out the bilateral distrust and opening the relations of mutual respect and equality", the commentary said.

The six-party talks - involving North and South Korea, the US, China, Japan and Russia - stalled for three years after Pyongyang stormed out in protest over sanctions.

But Pyongyang's envoy held talks with his Seoul counterpart last week raising the prospect that the dialogue could resume.