In South Korea Friday, Tillerson said: “Let me be very clear, the Policy of Strategic Patience has ended. We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures. All options are on the table.”

Meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Saturday, Tillerson said tensions on the Korean Peninsula have reached a “rather dangerous level.”

“I think we share a common view and a sense that tensions in the peninsula are quite high right now,” Tillerson said. “We will work together to see if we cannot bring the government in Pyongyang to a place where they want to make a different course – make a course correction – and move away from the development of nuclear weapons.”

Earlier this month, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as a preparation for war.

Three of the missiles flew about 1,000 kilometers and landed in Japanese waters, the Pentagon said. U.S. officials said the weapons were medium-range rockets that did not pose a threat to North America.

VOA’s White House correspondent Steve Herman, Brian Padden in Seoul and Carla Babb at the Pentagon contributed to this report.

Source:VOA