The United States will never accept North Korea as a nuclear power and will come to the defense of the South if necessary, Secretary of State John Kerry said after meeting his counterpart in Seoul on Friday, April 12, according to Reuters.

"We are all united in the fact that North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power," Kerry told a press conference.

Kerry was in Seoul ahead of a visit to China and Japan in a bid to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions after more than a month of threats from Pyongyang that it would strike at the U.S. and South Korea if attacked.