Kim spoke on a day that US Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the tense zone dividing North and South Korea and warned Pyongyang that after years of testing the US and South Korea with its nuclear ambitions, "the era of strategic patience is over".
The vice president said the USA will not waver on its decades-long partnership South Korea amid rising tensions with North Korea.
US President Trump has asked China's President Xi Jinping to take stronger measures to stop North Korea's programmes to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan.
White House officials said the economic meetings in Tokyo, with Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and other officials, are meant to forge a framework for future discussions after the us withdrew from a Pacific Rim trade pact.
Meanwhile, China's once-thriving relationship with South Korea has hit the rocks over Beijing's strenuous objections to Seoul's deploying of an advanced USA anti-missile system.
North Korea's deputy United Nations ambassador said a "thermonuclear war may break out at any moment", accusing the United States of escalating the situation in a news conference on Monday.
One called for "dual-track" talks on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula - the top priority of the United States - and replacing the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a formal peace treaty, a key demand of Pyongyang.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
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US officials say tougher sanctions could include an oil embargo, a global ban on North Korea's airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang.
When it comes to North Korea and this weekend's holiday theatrics - military parades featuring Pyongyang's latest missiles and technological terrors, along with a failed missile test - there is only one thing that is clear: Tensions on the Korean peninsula are only going to get worse.
Pence arrived in Tokyo from South Korea, where he assured leaders of the "iron-clad" alliance with the United States. Under rainfall, Pence later stood a few meters from the military demarcation line outside Freedom House, gazing at the North Korean soldiers across the border, and then peered at a deforested stretch of North Korea from a lookout post in the hillside. "We are with you 100%", he said. "It seems the focus is now firmly on future missile tests from North Korea and whether any future tests will actually be successful", Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG in Melbourne, wrote in a note.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would not tolerate any "nuclear missile adventures" by North Korea. Students should remember these considerations when they engage in conversation about the state of affairs in East Asia, and hopefully, a peaceful solution to the problems in the Korean Peninsula will result instead of a new conflict.
"That's a common failure mode for North Korean missiles very early on in their development cycle when they are working out the bugs in the propulsion and guidance system", the weapons expert told AFP.
North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations reiterated on the weekend that the North is ready to respond to any U.S. missile or nuclear strike. For all of 2016, the surplus was US$23 billion, it said.
The threat posed by North Korea is very real, but when rhetoric about North Korea exclusively revolves around the activities of the military and the danger to global security that the North Korean state represents, the innocent people under the regime's thumb tend to be ignored, both in the media and in mainstream conversation about the country.
The remark follows Trump's continued warnings to North Korea on his Twitter account.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Well, we haven't had a response from North Korea yet, Robert. The stance is sparking concerns among former officials in successive Democratic and Republican administrations who say Trump appears to be abandoning a pillar of U.S. efforts to urge China's cooperation on North Korea.
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