The United States on Saturday asked China to use its influence on North Korea to prevent a new "provocation," saying that Pyongyang must mend ties with the South if it wants to move ahead.

During first-of-a-kind talks between the Pacific powers on Asia-related issues, senior US official Kurt Campbell said he shared views with China on North Korea, which counts on Beijing as its primary source of support.

"We've again asked for China to take critical steps to urge North Korea to reach out and to deal responsibly and appropriately with South Korea and to refrain from any further provocations," Campbell told reporters after the talks in Hawaii.

North Korea and China have appealed for a resumption of six-nation talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear program, but the United States has said that it first wants Kim Jong-Il's regime to commit clearly to previous agreements and to lower tension with US-allied South Korea.

"We are looking for concrete progress in North-South relations and we believe that that is critical first step towards a larger engagement with North Korea," Campbell said.

North Korea last year shelled a civilian area of the South for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War, killing four, and was accused in the sinking of a South Korean warship that claimed the lives of 46 sailors.

China refrained from public criticism of North Korea over the tensions, to the consternation of South Korea and the United States.

But South Korean media on Friday quoted the South 's President Lee Myung-Bak as telling lawmakers that China has warned North Korea against further attacks.

The Hawaii talks focused largely on rising tension between China and its neighbors in the South China Sea, with the United States urging calm.

earlier related report
S. Korea to hold drill near tense N. Korea border
Seoul (AFP) June 26, 2011 - South Korea will hold military drills near the border with North Korea this week against a background of simmering tensions with its communist neighbour, an official said Sunday.

The South's army will stage field training exercises in the city of Paju from Monday to Friday, Seoul's defence ministry spokesman said.

"The training is something we have been doing on a regular basis to improve our combat readiness," he said without elaborating.

Cross-border tension has been acute since the North's alleged sinking of a Seoul warship that claimed 46 lives and a shelling of a frontier island that killed four South Koreans last year.

Ties deteriorated again after Pyongyang announced late last month it was breaking all contact with Seoul's conservative government, which has demanded an apology from the North over the two attacks.

The arrival by boat in South Korea of nine refugees from the North this month has further heightened tensions after Seoul rejected Pyongyang's demand to send the nine back.

A Seoul-based group of North Korean defectors launched 100,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border on Saturday urging the toppling of the communist regime, despite threats from the North to shoot at them.

Giant balloons were inscribed with anti-Pyongyang slogans including one calling for the overthrow of leader Kim Jong-Il and his youngest son Kim Jong-Un's "hereditary dictatorship".

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