TAORMINA (AFP) - US President Donald Trump promised Friday that North Korea "will be solved", as G7 powers opened a summit that will confront a series of missile tests by the nuclear-armed nation.
Trump's tough talk came in a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, which along with South Korea is most immediately threatened by North Korean belligerence.
But the isolated regime has also threatened to target places further afield such as the US West Coast, and Trump has called North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-Un a "madman with nuclear weapons".
US President Donald Trump (right) shakes hands with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe at a bilateral summit held in Taormina, Italy on Friday. (Yonhap)
"We will be discussing many things including of course North Korea which is very much on our minds," he said in the Sicilian town of Taormina as he held bilateral talks with Abe at the start of the two-day G7 summit.
"It's a big problem, it's a world problem.
"It will be solved, you can bet on that," he added, without giving further details.
North Korea carried out two atomic tests last year, and has accelerated its missile launch programme, despite tough UN sanctions aimed at denying Kim the hard currency needed to fund his weapons ambitions.
So far Washington has opted for sanctions and diplomatic pressure, while looking to China, the North's closest ally, to help rein in Pyongyang.
Earlier this month naval exercises were conducted in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, with South Korean and Japanese aircraft also taking part.
Abe said he intended to use the G7 summit to underscore the danger posed by the unpredictable regime in North Korea.
"The issue of North Korea is a grave threat not only to East Asia but also to the world," he told reporters before leaving Tokyo, urging the G7 to act "resolutely".
Pyongyang's launches this year have included a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile this month which the North claimed was capable of carrying a "heavy" nuclear warhead, fuelling tensions with Washington.
The US is worried that if Kim is not stopped, other countries in the region including Japan and South Korea would be compelled to seek their own nuclear capability as a defence measure.