Burma has promised to comply with UN resolutions targeting North Korea’s weapons programmes, a Seoul official said Tuesday, following suspicions of military collaboration in recent years.

The Seoul presidential spokeswoman was speaking from the Southeast Asian nation after a summit Monday between visiting South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and Burma’s President Thein Sein.

Burma has also agreed to free a North Korean refugee serving a five-year prison term since 2010 for illegally entering the country, the spokeswoman said.

Lee is the first South Korean leader to visit the nation formerly known as Burma since a predecessor narrowly escaped a North Korean assassination attempt in 1983.

A bomb planted by a Pyongyang agent missed then-president Chun Doo-Hwan but killed 17 other South Koreans plus four locals.

Burma angrily broke ties with the North after that incident but restored them in 2007. Reports of military cooperation since then had been a cause for concern for Seoul in the past.

Thein Sein on Monday denied any nuclear cooperation with Pyongyang, and said his country would abide by UN Security Council resolutions on the North’s nuclear and missile programmes, the Seoul spokeswoman told AFP by phone.

The resolutions also ban weapons exports by the North.

The Burmese leader has previously denied any nuclear cooperation with the North. He has won international praise for a series of sweeping political and economic reforms since taking office last year.

At Monday’s meeting Lee offered to expand grants and development loans and start programmes to share his country’s economic development experience.

The two leaders agreed to expand cooperation in energy and resources development and infrastructure construction in Burma, the spokeswoman said.