"During the (presidency of Donald) Trump North Korea has fired missiles nine times already", Denisov said, TASS news agency reported.

US President Donald Trump cast the launch as a direct snub against China, one of North Korea's only allies and a nation seen by the Trump administration as a potential US ally in efforts to stamp out Pyongyang's nuclear program.

In an interview with CBS' Face The Nation, shown on Sunday, Mr Trump said Kim was obviously a "pretty smart cookie" as he took power in his 20s and held it despite "a lot of people" trying to take it away.

The joint drills have just ended, but naval exercises are continuing in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) with a US strike group led by the aircraft carrier US Carl Vinson.

China opposes THAAD because military chiefs fear the powerful radar system it is fitted with will be used to spy across their border. Cirincione has been following the danger to the US posed by the autocratic regime in Pyongyang.

The issue has emerged as a hot topic in the May 9 snap presidential election that is expected to usher in a left-leaning government.

Seoul retorted that under the Status of Forces Agreement that governs the United States military presence in the country, the South would provide the THAAD site and infrastructure while the U.S. would pay to deploy and operate it.

"This is Kim giving us the finger, giving China the finger, giving the United Nations the finger", he said.

The missile test was, however, a failure and it blew up within North Korean territory, according to US and South Korean military.

North Korea has said it will carry out fresh nuclear tests "at any time and any location" Kim Jong-un chooses.

The United States called Friday's UN meeting to call for greater sustained pressure on Pyongyang.

Trump later added that the issue of North Korea was "maybe more important than trade".

A United States defence official told AFP, however, that the system has only "reached initial intercept capability". And what right does he have to attempt to change fundamentally the deployment of nuclear missiles?

"What I told our South Korean counterpart is until any renegotiation, that the deals in place, we'll adhere to our word", McMaster told "Fox News Sunday".

"What the president has asked us to do, is to look across all of our alliances and to have appropriate burden sharing-responsibility sharing".

China's proposal for a freeze on North Korea's military programs in exchange for a halt to US-South Korea military drills are "ideas that merit serious attention", Gatilov said. "And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary", he said.

North Korea, technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea and has said it will pursue its nuclear and missile programs to counter perceived USA aggression. Can you imagine if I say, 'Hey, by the way, how are you doing with North Korea? Dave Benham, a PACOM spokesman. Washington and Seoul agreed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery deployment in July in the wake of a string of North Korean missile tests.

Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, in an apparent show of solidarity with Washington, has ordered the Izumo, Japan's biggest warship, to protect a US navy ship that might be going to help supply the USS Carl Vinson, the Asahi newspaper said.

"It appears to be a new type of missile that has yet to be known".

Trump did not say what conditions would need to be met for any such meeting to occur or when it could happen, but the White House said later North Korea would need to meet many conditions before a meeting could be contemplated.

Tillerson said China also told the USA that it had informed North Korea "that if they did conduct further nuclear tests, China would be taking sanctions actions on their own".

The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made some progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.