WASHINGTON -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear Friday that her government is opposed to forceful repatriation of North Korean refugees, which is in breach of international obligations.

   "We urge every country to act according to international obligations," such as the 1951 U.N. refugee convention and the 1967 protocol, Clinton said in a joint press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan after their talks here.

She was responding to a question on China's policy of sending back North Korean defectors to their authoritarian and impoverished nation. Recently, China has repatriated around 30 North Koreans, according to human rights activists, although there is no government-level confirmation.

China treats North Koreans as economic migrants and not refugees eligible for asylum.

 "We believe that refugees should not be repatriated and subjected once again to the dangers that they fled from," Clinton said without hesitation but using carefully chosen phrases.

 She said Washington has "engagement" with China over the sensitive issue, which has emerged as a source of diplomatic tension between Seoul and Beijing. The South's conservative

government has averted its longstanding strategy of taking a low-key approach to place more emphasis on quiet diplomatic efforts to bring North Koreans to the South.

"The treatment of North Korean refugees is an issue on which we have ongoing engagement with our partners, both in Korea and China," Clinton said.

Clinton said Glyn Davies, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, "raised our concerns about the North Korean refugees detained in China" with senior Chinese officials when he last visited China last month.

 "And we urge all countries in the region to cooperate in the protection of North Korean refugees in their territories," she said. "We continue to work with international organizations in order to protect these refugees and to find durable. permanent solutions for them."

On ways to deal with nuclear-armed North Korea, the top U.S. diplomat emphasized close consultation with the South.

As Pyongyang agreed to halt some of its nuclear activities in return for food aid from the U.S., concerns have been growing among South Koreans that the communist neighbor is bypassing Seoul, seeking to talk only with Washington.

 "This is an important time for our critical partnership," Clinton said, "Any effort by anyone to drive a wedge between the United States and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) will fail."

The South's foreign minister, standing next to Clinton, also quoted the secretary as saying in their closed-door talks that there will be no "fundamental improvement" of relations between the U.S. and the North without progress in inter-Korean ties.

   "I mentioned that North Korea's recent denunciations of the South are an attempt to render influence on the elections (later this year) and the domestic politics of the Republic of Korea and that they are related to the North's own internal situations," Kim said. (Yonhap)