Missile test futile: S.Korea candidate

Pyongyang must "immediately stop reckless, provocative acts", South Korea's leading presidential candidate has said after the North's latest missile test.

Pyongyang must "stop reckless, provocative acts", South Korea's leading presidential candidate says. (AAP)

The frontrunner in South Korea's presidential election sees North Korea's latest attempted missile launch as "an exercise in futility".

"We urge again the Kim Jong Un regime to immediately stop reckless, provocative acts and choose the path to co-operate with the international community, including giving up its nuclear program," Park Kwang-on, a spokesman for Moon Jae-in, said in a statement on Saturday, referring to the North Korean leader.

"That is a way to save itself, not a way to self-destruct," Park said.

North Korea test-fired a missile earlier on Saturday, which disintegrated only minutes into the flight, US and South Korean officials said.

It was the North's fourth successive unsuccessful missile test since March.

South Korea's presidential election is on May 9.