SEOUL, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States did not want to go back to the past confrontation and tension, South Korea's presidential Blue House said Sunday.

A senior Blue House official, who declined to be identified, told local reporters that the DPRK and the United States both did "never" want to go back to the past confrontation and tension, a situation before 2017.

Both Pyongyang and Washington saw that they had moved forward so deeply that it would actually be hard to go back to the past, the Blue House said, confirming the senior official's background briefing.

Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump held their second summit in late February in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, but it ended with no agreement.

The Blue House official noted that though Kim and Trump failed to reach an agreement in Hanoi, both Pyongyang and Washington made clear their willingness to continue diplomacy and negotiations.

For the meaningful progress in denuclearization, it needed to bear a series of fruits in an early stage, through which mutual trust can be built and then the eventual goal achieved, the official noted.

He said the South Korean government will make best effort to help resume the DPRK-U.S. negotiations as soon as possible in cooperation with the United States while encouraging the DPRK to stay in the dialogue track.

South Korea, the official said, will actively implement the comprehensive military agreement with the DPRK that was signed by defense chiefs of the two Koreas during the third summit between the current leaders of the two Koreas in Pyongyang last September.

The Blue House official said the inter-Korean efforts should continue to be made to defuse military tensions on the peninsula.