Washington  - The United States and China on Tuesday agreed to work together to stabilize the world economy and explore ways to cooperate on climate change as the global powers concluded two days of talks in Washington.

The dialogue focused on mainly on recovering from the economic downturn but included a broad array of topics from global warming to nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

"I came away from the last two days even more convinced than when we started, that an open relationship ... is in the best interest of both our countries and the world," US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said.

Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo called the talks "unprecedented" in the four decades since the United States and the People's Republic of China established formal relations.

The countries signed a document on climate change and clean energy obligating the world's two leading polluters to cooperate on reducing greenhouse gases, but no concrete goals were set.

China and the US emit nearly half of the world's greenhouse gases, which are blamed for climate change and are considered critical to the prospects of a new global treaty being reached at a major UN summit in December in Copenhagen.

The document "provides our countries with direction as we work together to support international climate negotiations and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy," Clinton said.

Government officials from both countries suggested the two nations were no closer to resolving their differences over how much to reduce their climate-damaging emissions. US climate envoy Todd Stern said negotiators were "slogging ahead" and still held out hope for a deal by December.

China argues that industrial nations bear a greater responsibility for addressing climate change, but the United States wants emerging powers like China and India to agree to their own international targets for limiting the growth of their emissions.

The two days of talks were led by Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the US side, and Dai and Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

"Our two countries have an important contribution to make to the global efforts to tackle climate change, to ensure energy security, to protect the environment and the only planet we have," Dai said at the signing ceremony with Clinton.

The US, the world's largest economy, and China, the third-largest by gross domestic product, are considered critical to overcoming the first recession in the world economy since World War II.

Both governments helped "bring the world economy back from the edge of the most acute economic crisis we've seen in decades," Geithner said. The two sides agreed on a framework over the long term that would "require changes both in China and the United States."

"In the United States, this means raising private savings," he said. "For China, this means rebalancing towards domestic-led growth" and a "shift away from dependence on exports."

Wang echoed Geithner's remarks, saying both countries should work together to "actively transform economic growth patterns."

During the talks, the United States urged China to speed the restructuring of its economy to spur its own consumer spending and move away from overreliance on export earnings. The Chinese sought assurances that the ballooning US deficit would not threaten Beijing's 800 billion dollars in debt holdings.

Also on the agenda were efforts to rein in North Korea's nuclear programme. Both sides are committed to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and are seeking ways to lure Pyongyang back to six-country negotiations.

The Stalinist state announced in January that it was pulling out of the talks and resumed its nuclear activities, conducting its second detonation of a bomb in May, prompting UN Security Council sanctions backed by Washington and Beijing.

Clinton said the two sides discussed ways to encourage North Korea to live up to its obligations under the six-nation talks and the enforcement of the UN sanctions. They also discussed Iran's nuclear activities and stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan, Clinton said, adding that Beijing shares US concerns about a potentially nuclear- armed Iran.

President Barack Obama held a closed-door meeting with the Chinese delegation on Tuesday afternoon. He opened the gathering Monday in part by pressing China to protect human rights, minorities and religious freedom.

"Just as we respect China's ancient and remarkable culture, its remarkable achievements, we also strongly believe that the religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds," Obama said. (dpa)