As Washington pondered the next move after North Korea's public declaration last week that it possessed nuclear weapons and was boycotting multilateral talks to end a two-year standoff with the United States, Rice met her South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-Moon in Washington Monday.

They agreed "on the importance of continuing to work together in the six-party framework, continuing to encourage North Korea to come to that forum in order to succeed in denuclearization of the peninsula," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters after the one hour meeting.

Ban said South Korea should return to the negotiation table "as a responsible member of the international community," adding that efforts would be intensified to achieve this.

"With this increased and intensified diplomatic efforts, I am confident that in the end North Koreans will come back to dialogue table, he said.

Rice is scheduled to meet another ally Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura this weekend as part of consultations with North Korea's neighbors.

At the weekend, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing assured her by telephone that Beijing would push for early resumption of the talks.

Parties to the talks -- the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China -- are divided on how to reward and rein in Pyongyang.

South Korea and China, North Korea's chief ally, have refused to use their economic might against Pyongyang to force it to drop its nuclear weapons drive.

Asked whether the United States should offer incentives to North Korea as some had suggested, Boucher said: "We and the others agree that this is not the moment to start changing the playbook ... that the North Koreans shouldn't be rewarded for causing difficulties in the reconvening of talks."

The nuclear standoff erupted in October 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of operating a program based on highly enriched uranium, violating a 1994 arms control agreement.

The New York Times reported Monday that the United States was preparing strategies to tighten the noose on North Korea by cutting off its few remaining sources of income, saying the move might evolve into a broader initiative with participation by allies.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan did not confirm or deny the report but said the United States would "continue to consult with our allies and our partners" on North Korea's involvement in illegal activities.

"And North Korea cannot be allowed to continue its illegal and illicit activities," he said. "We've made that very clear."

The new US strategies would intensify efforts to track and freeze financial transactions that allegedly enabled Kim Jong Il's Stalinist regime to profit from counterfeiting, drug trafficking and the sale of missile and other weapons technology, the New York Times said.

The United States "had an obligation to protect the American people," McClellan said. "We have an obligation to help protect our allies. We have an obligation to protect our respective economies."

Despite North Korea's boycott of the six-party talks, Rice on Monday appointed US envoy to South Korea Christopher Hill to take on the additional role as head of the American delegation to the meeting, last convened in June

Hill takes over from retired Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs James Kelley.

North Korea attended three rounds of talks but refused attend the next round in September due to "US hostility."

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.