Trump reaffirms support for Japan after North Korea's missile launch

North Korea's test launch of a ballistic missile was "absolutely intolerable," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a joint news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida, on Saturday.

"I just want everybody to understand, and fully know, that the United States of America is behind Japan, our great ally, 100 percent," Trump told reporters in Palm Beach, Florida, speaking alongside Abe. He made no further comments.

North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast early on Sunday, South Korea's military said, the first time the isolated state has tested such a device since U.S. President Donald Trump's election.

The test was of a medium- or intermediate-range missile that landed in the Sea of Japan, according to the U.S. defence department, not an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which the North has said it could test at any time.

The latest test comes a day after Trump held a summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and also follows Trump's phone call last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.