The US is discussing with China imposing further sanctions against North Korea as the reclusive country is "not even close" to taking steps to rein in its nuclear weapons programme, Secretary of State John Kerry has warned.
Speaking in the South Korean capital, Mr Kerry said Washington had offered the North the chance of an improved relationship in return for signs of a genuine willingness to end its nuclear programme.
"To date, to this moment, particularly with recent provocations, it is clear the DPRK is not even close to meeting that standard," Mr Kerry told a joint news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.
"Instead it continues to pursue nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles."
North Korea is already under heavy UN, EU and US sanctions for its missile and nuclear tests.
"I think never has the international community been as united as we are now, that, number one North Korea needs to denuclearize," Mr Kerry said, adding a pending nuclear deal with Iran could serve as an example to the North.
"With respect to the methodology for boosting sanctions and other things, we (the United States and China) are discussing all of that now. China has obviously an extraordinary leverage.
"We will have security and economic dialogue with the Chinese in Washington in June and that will be the moment where we will table some of these specific steps."
Mr Kerry did not elaborate on possible measures and it was not clear whether he was referring to steps that would be taken by the two powers or by the UN.
China has a history of resisting tough moves against North Korea not mandated by resolutions of the UN Security Council, on which it sits with veto power.
Pyongyang walked away from a 2005 deal with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States to end its nuclear programme in return for diplomatic and economic rewards.
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