MANILA- President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday said Southeast Asian leaders are “extremely worried” about the tension between North Korea and the United States, as he warned US President Donald Trump not to play into Kim Jong-Un’s mind.

Duterte, who bared that he was expecting a phone call from Trump on Saturday evening (Manila time) said he would communicate to the US leader the sentiments of Southeast Asian leaders regarding North Korea’s firing of missiles.

“The countries of ASEAN or ASEAN as a word is extremely worried,” Duterte told reporters in a press briefing following the 30th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit.

Duterte said Washington should be more “prudent and patient” in dealing with Pyongyang since the North Korean leader appears to simply want to end the world.

“Do not play into his (Kim) hands. The guy simply wants to end the world, that is why he is very happy. He is always smiling but he really wants to finish everything and they will drag us all down,” Duterte said.

Duterte last Thursday called on the US and Asian powers China, Japan, and South Korea to exercise patience in dealing with North Korea.

"I would caution everybody... if there's a nuclear war here, a holocaust, this will become an arid land," he previously told reporters.

North Korea earlier appealed to Southeast Asian countries for support in its row with the US to prevent what it warned could be a "nuclear holocaust", according to a letter obtained by AFP.

In the letter to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' secretary general, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-Ho warned the situation on the Korean Peninsula was "reaching the brink of war" because of Washington's actions.

Following talks with other Southeast Asian leaders, Duterte said he would not want to know what runs inside Kim’s mind but noted that he knows that the North Korean leader is putting the planet “on an edge” with his missile launches.

Tensions have soared in the region in recent weeks in the wake of a series of North Korean missile tests and tough rhetoric from Washington on the isolated nation's rogue weapons program.

Asia would also be the first to suffer if tensions between Washington and Pyongyang escalate, Duterte said.

“I would just say Mr. President (Trump), please see to it that there’s no war because my region will suffer immensely the first. The first fall out would be us in Asia, very near, very dangerous,” he said.

Trump should just let Kim “play” with his missiles according to Duterte to avoid further hostilities which the US may not be able to stop.

“I’m sure President Trump by now is also cautioning his military to just hang on there and not to start something which they cannot control,” Duterte said.--with a report from Agence France-Presse