Hillary Clinton visits Seoul as Korean crisis mounts

Hillary Clinton visits Seoul as Korean

Mrs Clinton has been meeting leaders around Asia

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in South Korea after the North cut ties after being blamed for sinking a Southern warship.

Mrs Clinton, at the end of a week-long tour of Asia, met Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and was also due to see President Lee Myung-bak.

North Korea said it was severing all ties and banning South Korean ships and planes from its territory.

South Korea announced earlier it was suspending trade links with the North.

It is seeking a strong international response to the sinking of its ship, the Cheonan, which was torpedoed on 26 March with the loss of 46 sailors.

The South Korean government will be eager to hear the details of two days of discussions Mrs Clinton had in Beijing with her Chinese counterparts, the BBC's John Sudworth reports from Seoul.

America has lent its full weight to the conclusions of an international team of experts that last week produced what it called "overwhelming" proof that the warship was hit by a North Korean torpedo.

The US secretary of state has been pressing China to join the international condemnation but Beijing is taking a cautious line, calling for restraint, our correspondent says.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun said on Wednesday his country was still evaluating information on the sinking of the Cheonan.

"We have always believed that dialogue is better than confrontation," he added.

Tank exercises

Mrs Clinton, nearing the end of her Asian tour, left Beijing for Seoul on Wednesday morning.

South Korea's military have been on exercises

With tensions rising rapidly, the North has reacted angrily to trade and shipping sanctions announced by the South.

It said on Wednesday it would cut off a road link across the heavily defended border if Seoul resumed propaganda broadcasts, halted six years ago.

Earlier, the North said it would match Southern sanctions with its own, and sever the few remaining lines of communication between the two governments.

South Korean ships and planes would be banned from Northern territorial waters and airspace.

All South Korean workers in the jointly run Kaesong industrial park north of the border were expected to be expelled although they were allowed to enter on Wednesday, Reuters news agency reports.

Apart from Kaesong, there is little economic relationship left between the two states, their ties almost frozen since Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008, the agency notes.

"North Korea is not closing up Kaesong immediately because it is saving the cards it needs in order to play the game," said Jang Cheol-hyeon, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy.

The two states are technically still at war after the Korean conflict ended without an armistice in 1953.

South Korean K1 tanks could be seen on Tuesday conducting an exercise to prepare for a possible surprise attack by North Korea.