N. Korea rejects S. Korean group's offer of malaria help

USA defence secretary James Mattis said the U.S. was encouraged by China's efforts to restrain North Korea, and that the threat from North Korea was "clear and present".

The State Department urged North Korea on Sunday to stop destabilizing actions and World War 3 rhetoric, and return to talks after Pyongyang rejected a U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution and vowed to further enlarge its nuclear arsenal.

"We call on North Korea to refrain from provocative, destabilizing actions and rhetoric, and to make the strategic choice to fulfill its worldwide obligations and commitments and return to serious talks", State Department spokeswoman Anna Richey-Allen told Yonhap News Agency.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has voiced support for the unanimous United Nations decision and called on North Korea to refrain from repeated nuclear tests and missile launches.

The statement said the latest resolution was said to have been put together by the USA and China in the "back room".

"It is a fatal miscalculation if the countries, which have had a hand in the frame-up of the 'sanctions resolution, ' would even think that they can delay or hold in check the eye-opening development of the DPRK's nuclear forces even for a moment", the ministry said.

It came less than a week after the nuclear-armed North test-fired a short-range projectile which fell provocatively close to Japan, its 12th ballistic missile test this year - in defiance of United Nations sanctions warnings and U.S. threats of possible military action.

While she said the United States would "continue to seek a peaceful, diplomatic resolution", she made clear they were "prepared to counteract North Korean aggression through other means, if necessary".

"It is not only (a) ballistic missile defense system - it has real function", said Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin.

As tensions have increased between Pyongyang and Washington, the USA has been pressing China to rein in Kim Jong Un's nuclear programme. "That is our principle position".

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Defence Minister Marise Payne will host US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis for the day-long AusMin meeting.

The U.S. military said last Tuesday that it "successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile target" in a test conducted amid concerns over the North's weapons program.

Once considered a strong ally, Russian Federation has backed fresh sanctions against North Korea.

In a stark contrast, North Korea said in a separate commentary issued through the Rodong Sinmun on Sunday that it was "unfazed" by U.S. President Donald Trump's North Korea policy of maximum pressure, adding "we will no longer fall for that old trick". "Economical restrictions should be a kind of tool to invoke North Korea to a peaceful process of resolving the dispute and conflict, and not to once again deteriorate the economic solution in North Korea", he said.