US SECRETARY of State Rex Tillerson threatened pre-emptive attacks on North Korea yesterday if its nuclear weapons programme goes too far.

Speaking in the South Korean capital Seoul on the second leg of a three-nation tour of the Far East, Mr Tillerson said: “All of the options are on the table.”

He claimed the US did not want war, “but, obviously, if North Korea takes actions that threaten South Korean forces or our own forces, that would be met with (an) appropriate response.

“If they elevate the threat of their weapons programme to a level that we believe requires action, that option is on the table.”

Mr Tillerson said that, by taking other steps, including sanctions, Washington was hopeful that it could persuade North Korea to take a different course before it reaches that point.

But he rejected Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s call on Wednesday for a return to six-party talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the US, which have been suspended since 2009.

Instead, he demanded that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons before any negotiations could happen.

“Twenty years of talks with North Korea have brought us to where we are today,” the US secretary of state said.

“It’s important that the leadership of North Korea realise that their current pathway of nuclear weapons and escalating threats will not lead to their objective of security and economic development.

“That pathway can only be achieved by denuclearising, giving up their weapons of mass destruction, and only then will we be prepared to engage with them in talks.”

Mr Tillerson will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing today for talks that are likely to focus heavily on North Korea.

Yesterday, he urged China to fully implement new sanctions against Pyongyang — which Mr Li insisted this week was being done.

He also called Beijing’s objection to the deployment of the US Thaad anti-missile system in South Korea “inappropriate and troubling.”

The deployment has sparked a Chinese consumer boycott of the South Korean Lotte supermarket chain, which owns the golf course where the missiles will be sited.

An editorial yesterday in China’s Global Times newspaper — seen as reflective of the Communist Party of China’s line — charged: “Washington and Seoul, with no new solutions to reach their goal, are putting more blame on China.”