US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday said North Korea "must stop its provocative behaviour" after a multinational panel blamed it for the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship.
"It's important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences," she said in Tokyo at the start of a week-long Asia tour that will also take her to Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul.
"We cannot allow this attack to go unanswered by the international community," she said, adding that on the Beijing leg of her trip from Monday she looked forward to "intensive consultations in China".
panel on Thursday blamed North Korea for sinking the Cheonan with a torpedo in March, claiming 46 lives, prompting an angry denial from Pyongyang and a threat of war if it is punished.
China, one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council, has called for more evidence and urged calm, suggesting it will not jump to punish its communist neighbour, whose leader recently visited Beijing.
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Clinton, after meeting Japan Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, said: "We agreed that North Korea must stop its provocative behaviour, halt its policy of threats and belligerence towards its neighbours and take irreversible steps to fulfil its denuclear commitments and comply with the international law."
The US top diplomat's visit comes as Tokyo and Washington move to resolve a dispute over a controversial US base that has strained ties between the long-time allies since a centre-left Japanese government took power last year.
Okada said that "the importance of the Japan-US alliance is increasing as the sinking of the South Korean vessel has shown the instability" in East Asia. Clinton also said that the half-century US-Japan alliance is the "cornerstone of stability and progress" in the Asia-Pacific region.
