The United States called Wednesday for China to look at additional steps to pressure North Korea as it urged nations to follow its lead in imposing new sanctions.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who announced the new measures against Pyongyang during a visit to South Korea, plans to meet with China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Thursday during a regional meeting in Vietnam.

"We will be consulting with China (on) what we think (are) additional steps that it can take," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

"The secretary will have a chance to explain to Foreign Minister Yang what we have in mind here and the way forward not only on issues related to North Korea but also issues related to Iran," Crowley said.

Crowley praised China's response to North Korea, saying that it has "aggressively implemented" last year's Security Council resolutions that tightened sanctions aimed at Pyongyang's military program.

But a number of US lawmakers and pundits have accused China of going easy on North Korea as it finds the status quo to be in its best interest. Pyongyang counts on China as its primary political and economic supporter.

Crowley said that Robert Einhorn, the US envoy on nonproliferation, would travel in early August to encourage enhancing enforcement of North Korea sanctions.

"We would like to see other countries also take the same kinds of national steps that we've announced," Crowley said.

"We hope (greater sanctions) have an impact on the core leadership which will, I think, change their calculations about how they engage with the United States and other countries," he said.

Crowley said the countries on Einhorn's trip would be specified later.

The United States and a number of other nations, particularly Japan, already impose a range of tough sanctions on North Korea.

Clinton said in Seoul that the United States would impose new sanctions that would single out the elite, including by targeting luxury items such as cigarettes, liquor and exotic foods.

Crowley said that the United States would be more specific on the new sanctions in around two weeks.

"There are just some legal steps that have to be done, in terms of the finalization and publication of the specific designations that are on our list," Crowley said.

"These measures are not directed at the people of North Korea, who have suffered too long, they are directed at the DPRK's destabilizing, illicit and provocative actions," he said, using the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"If and when North Korea abides by its international obligations, the need for sanctions would be eliminated," he said.

earlier related report
S.Korea, US warn N.Korea against provocations
Seoul (AFP) July 21, 2010 - The United States and South Korea warned North Korea Wednesday of "serious consequences" for aggression and urged the communist state to admit it staged a deadly attack on one of Seoul's warships.

The warning came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates held talks with the South's Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan and Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young.

The ministers in a joint statement "called upon North Korea to refrain from further attacks or hostilities against the ROK (South Korea) and underscored that there would be serious consequences for any such irresponsible behaviour".

The two countries, citing a multinational investigation, accuse the North of torpedoing the Cheonan warship near the disputed Yellow Sea border in March with the loss of 46 lives -- a charge it denies.

The ministers, after holding their first-ever such meeting, said the "irresponsible military provocation" gravely threatens regional peace and stability.

"The ministers urged North Korea to take responsibility for the attack," their statement said.

Gates and Kim Tuesday announced plans for a series of joint naval exercises designed to send a warning to the North.

The ministerial meeting was scheduled to mark the 60th anniversary this year of the start of the Korean War, in which US-led United Nations troops fought for the South.

The US has stationed troops -- currently 28,500 -- in South Korea ever since as part of their alliance.

The ministers expressed commitment "to maintain a robust combined defence posture capable of deterring and defeating any and all North Korean threats", including through the planned exercises.

They urged the North to abandon all nuclear programmes and the pursuit of nuclear weapons "and to demonstrate its genuine will for denuclearisation with concrete actions".

The statement made no mention of stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

Pyongyang has indicated conditional willingness to return to the talks, but Seoul and Washington say it must first show a clear commitment to disarmament.

The ministers also urged the impoverished state "to improve human rights conditions and living standards for its people in cooperation with the international community".

On other matters, they pledged to work to ratify a free trade pact signed three years ago and to secure a new agreement on the South's peaceful use of atomic energy.

South Korea wants to renegotiate a 1974 nuclear cooperation accord with the US which expires in 2014. It prevents South Korea from reprocessing fuel from nuclear power plants despite a shortage of storage space for atomic waste.