US Secretary of State John Kerry has said military exercises with South Korea this month will be the same as drills that have been held over the years and North Korea should not link them with reunions of separated Korean families.
North Korea, which says the exercises are a rehearsal for war, demanded in rare talks with South Korean officials on Wednesday that the drills be postponed so they do not overlap with the planned reunion of families separated since the 1950-53 Korean War.
But Mr Kerry said: "The US doesn't believe it is appropriate to link humanitarian issues such as (family) reunification to any other issues."
South Korea said it had rejected North Korea's demand to postpone the exercises which had raised the possibility the family reunions might be scrapped.
North and South Korean officials will meet again today for a second round of talks at the Panmunjom truce village.
Mr Kerry urged North Korea to abide by commitments it had made to show it was serious about re-engaging the US in nuclear talks.
He also said China could do more to help nudge North Korea into line.
Mr Kerry said: "Our belief is China can do more to urge North Korea to begin taking action to come into compliance with its international obligations and I will encourage China to use all means at its disposal to do so."
He is due in China today for talks on a controversial air defence zone declared by Beijing last year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article