Mr Warmbier was detained four days before North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in violation of United Nations (UN) sanctions, which drew condemnation from its neighbours and the US.
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The student is the third Western citizen known to be held in North Korea.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se said excluding North Korea from the dialogue process would serve as a powerful signal of the global community’s anger and frustration.
US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, made the warning on Wednesday a day before he planned to meet with Chinese officials in Beijing to pressure them to use their economic leverage over North Korea to force it to end its nuclear weapons program.
The planned meeting comes after Washington continued to urge Tokyo and Seoul to take concerted action with the US government, saying a response to North Korea requires cooperation from Japan and South Korea.
Thousands of tourists visit North Korea each year. The U.S. hopes that tough sanctions would bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table like they did with Iran.
The state news agency claimed that the student entered North Korea nominally for tourism, though the real intention was to undermine North Korea’s unity under the US government’s acquiescence and control.
“North Korean refugees who went to other countries before coming to South Korea say that the benefits offered here are like heaven”. Last October, it freed a South Korean national with a U.S. green card after holding him for six months.
In May of this year Won Moon-joo, a Korean permanent resident of the USA studying at New York University, was also arrested according to the KCNA, for “illegally entering the DPRK after crossing the Amnok River from Dandong”.
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North Korea joined the global social media networks in 2010 and has posted more than 17,500 tweets since then, mostly criticising its major foes – South Korea and the United States – and praising its ruling Kim family. The U.S. State Department has warned against travel to the North, however, and visitors, especially those from America, who break the country’s sometimes murky rules risk detention, arrest and possible jail sentences, although most have eventually been released.
