Secretary of State John Kerry vowed Tuesday that the United States would take steps to defend South Korea, dpa reported.
"We've heard an extraordinary amount of unacceptable rhetoric from the North Korean government in the last days," Kerry said, "so let me be perfectly clear here today: The United States will defend and protect ourselves and our treaty ally, the Republic of Korea."
Kerry met South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se at the State Department to discuss the crisis and called recent rhetoric from North Korean leader Kim Yong-Un "unacceptable."
He said Pyongyang's announcement that it planned to restart the Yongyon nuclear facility would be a "direct violation" of its obligations and a "provocative act ... completely contrary to the road that we have travelled all these years."