US President Barack Obama has asked China to use its influence over North Korea to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula after the communist state shelled South Korea's border island killing two marines.
Mr Obama said that North Korea poses a serious and ongoing threat and asked China to take a stand against it as the US stepped up international pressure to rally against the provocative attack by Pyongyang.
"This is a — just one more provocative incident in a series that we've seen over the last several months, and I'm going to be talking to the president of Korea — South Korea this evening and we'll be consulting closely with them in terms of the appropriate response," Mr Obama said.
"We've strongly condemned the attack. we are rallying the international community once again to put pressure on North Korea," he said.
Mr Obama, according to ABC News, wouldn't speculate on military actions the US may take, but reiterated that South Korea is "one of our most important allies" and "a cornerstone of US security in the Pacific region."
"We want to make sure all the parties in the region recognize that this is a serious and ongoing threat that has to be dealt with," Mr Obama said.
He specifically called on China to stand firm and "make clear to North Korean that there are a set of international rules that they need to abide by."
However, China so far has so far declined to put pressure on North Korea after an international investigation found that a North Korean torpedo was responsible for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March — a strike that killed 46 sailors.
In another interview, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said China is the one country with influence in Pyongyang.
The State Department spokesman, P J Crowley, told reporters that US diplomats are urging China to put pressure on the North Korean regime in the wake of the attacks, as the UN Security Council, of which China is a veto-wielding member, is expected to meet.
"China is pivotal to moving North Korea in a fundamentally different direction, which is not — just to state the obvious, that North Korea is a sovereign country and will do what it's going to do, whatever that is," Crowley said.
"But China does have influence with North Korea and we would hope and expect that China will use that influence first to reduce tensions that have arisen as a result of North Korean provocations, and then secondly, continue to encourage North Korea to take affirmative steps to denuclearise," he said.