White House says 'all options are on the table' in response to North Korean missile launch

Donald Trump has said, "all options are on the table" when speaking of how the United States intended to respond to the launch of a North Korean missile over Japanese airspace in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

"The world has received North Korea's latest message loud and clear," said the president in a written statement, adding that the launch signaled North Korea's "contempt for its neighbours, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behaviour."

It was the first missile fired over an American ally by North Korea that was designed to carry a nuclear payload, a clear act of defiance in the face of joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington taking place just south of the border.

"Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world," said Trump.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said that "Japan and the US positions are totally at one," adding that both nations were in "total agreement" of an emergency UN Security Council to apply pressure on the DPRK.

Just last week, Trump praised Pyongyang's decision to dial back on threats of an attack previously made to the US territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean.

"Kim Jong-un, I respect the fact that I believe he is starting to respect us," the president told those present at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. "I respect that fact very much. Respect that fact. And maybe, probably now, but maybe something positive can come about."

Hua Chunying of the Chinese foreign ministry told a Beijing press briefing to, "Think hard about it, who do you think should take the blame, if China is urging all parties to calm down while one party holds constant military exercises […] and the other is constantly launching missiles?"

At a UN conference on disarmament in Geneva, Han Tae Song, a diplomat from the DPRK said, "Now that the US has openly declared its hostile intention towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, by waging aggressive joint military exercises despite repeated warnings … my country has every reason to respond with tough counter-measures as an exercise of its right to self-defence.”

On a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, told a news conference, "the launching of the missiles from North Korea, we stick to the resolutions of the United Nations and we insist on the fact that the North Koreans must respect those resolutions from the United Nations."