The United Nations security council has condemned North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket on Sunday morning, after an emergency meeting in New York and calls by the US, South Korea and Japan for talks on how to respond to the isolated country’s latest action.
The 15 council members unanimously approved a statement that stressed how any launch of ballistic missile technology, “even if characterized as a satellite launch or space launch vehicle”, contributes to North Korea’s development of systems to deliver nuclear weapons.
World leaders have warned of serious consequences after North Korea launched the rocket on Sunday morning in defiance of international sanctions banning it from using ballistic missile technology.
The security council had been discussing a new round of sanctions against the Pyongyang regime following its fourth nuclear test last month. In a statement, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, condemned the launch as “deeply deplorable” and urged North Korea to “halt its provocative actions”.
Despite the latest moves, Pyongyang has remained defiant, releasing a statement via its Moscow embassy saying it intends to continue launching rockets carrying satellites into space.
The statement also noted the council’s commitment “to continue working toward a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation leading to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”.
“The state agency on space exploration, following the policy of the Workers’ party of Korea on giving priority to science and technology, will continue to launch more manmade satellites,” Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted the embassy as saying.
Pyongyang said the rocket had successfully put an Earth observation satellite into orbit, but the US and its allies believe the regime uses satellite launches as covert tests of technology that could be used to develop a missile capable of striking the US mainland.
North Korean state TV said in a special announcement at lunchtime on Sunday that the launch, ordered the previous day by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, had been a “complete success”.
An announcer said the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite – named after the late leader Kim Jong-il – was orbiting Earth every 94 minutes, adding that North Korea planned further satellite launches.
The US strategic command said it had detected a missile entering space, and South Korea’s military said the launch appeared to have been a success. South Korean defence officials later said they had retrieved what they believed to be a fairing dropped by the rocket as it hurtled towards the upper atmosphere. The object was found south-east of South Korea’s Jeju island by a navy ship, a defence ministry official said. A fairing shields the payload, or satellite, carried by a rocket into space.
John Schilling, a missile technology expert, said it bore similarities to a previous successful North Korean rocket launch just over three years ago. “Everything we have seen is consistent with a successful repeat of the 2012 launch,” said Schilling, who is involved in the “38 North” monitoring project at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “But it’s still too early to tell for sure.”
The launch drew immediate condemnation from other countries in the region and from Washington. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said it was “a flagrant violation of UN security council resolutions” that ban Pyongyang from using ballistic missile technology.
South Korea said on Sunday that it and the US would begin discussions on deploying an advanced missile defence system to counter the growing threat of North Korea’s weapons capabilities.
Australia responded to the launch by branding North Korea a threat to world peace. The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, told reporters in Canberra the government joins the international community in condemning “North Korea’s provocative, dangerous and destabilising behaviour”.
“North Korea continues to pose a threat to the region and the globe,” she said.
US military officials have said the sophisticated system called terminal high altitude area defence (THAAD) was needed in South Korea, which faces the threat of an increasingly advanced North Korean missile programme.
“If THAAD is deployed to the Korean peninsula, it will be only operated against North Korea,” Ryu Je-seung, a senior official at the South Korean defence ministry, said in a joint news conference with Thomas Vandal, commander of the Eighth US Army based in South Korea.
“North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programmes represent serious threats to our interests including the security of some of our closest allies, and undermine peace and security in the broader region,” she said.
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said the launch was “absolutely unacceptable” and a “clear violation” of UN security council resolutions, while the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, described it as “an unforgivable act of provocation”.
The Foreign Office in Britain “strongly” condemned the launch and said the UK would cooperate with a “robust” response and put pressure on North Korea through diplomatic channels.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “North Korea is fully aware that multiple UN security council resolutions prohibit the use of ballistic missile technology.
“We will work with allies and partners to ensure there is a robust response if the DPRK persists in violating these resolutions. We will also emphasise to North Korea through diplomatic channels that such actions will only serve to isolate the country further.”
Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, said he strongly condemned the launch, adding: “In conducting this provocation, North Korea has clearly demonstrated that it is intent on prioritising the development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes over improving the wellbeing of its own people.
“As North Korea is aware, the UN security council unanimously agreed to take significant measures against any further launches or nuclear tests. We will now meet with our partners in New York to agree a collective response.” Germany said the missile launch was an “irresponsible provocation”. The foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said North Korea had “once again ignored the warnings of the international community”. He noted that the launch breached a UN security council resolution and “once more threatens regional security”.
The French president, François Hollande, condemned the launch as “senseless” and called for “a quick and severe reaction from the international community at the security council, starting today”.
Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, described the launch as a a “direct violation” of five UN security council resolutions. Stoltenberg said the five resolutions “call for North Korea to suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile” programme, to “re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching and not to conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology”.
In China, which is North Korea’s only major ally, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said: “With regards to the DPRK’s insistence on implementing a launch of missile technology in the face of international opposition, China expresses regret.”
Earlier, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency had speculated that Sunday’s launch may have failed, but later quoted a military official as saying the North appeared to have put a satellite into orbit.
The launch took place between 9.30am and 9.35am local time at the Sohae satellite launch centre in Tongchang-ri on the north-west coast of North Korea, reports said.
Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, said debris from the multistage rocket had fallen about 155 miles (250km) off the south-west coast of the Korean peninsula into the East China Sea about 14 minutes after the launch. Japan had deployed missile defence batteries on land and out at sea, with the country’s defence forces under orders to shoot down the rocket if it threatened Japanese territory.
NHK broke into normal programming for news of the launch and showed live footage of Patriot missile batteries on the island of Okinawa. It also showed an object visible in the skies from Okinawa that was believed to be the rocket.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said no debris had fallen on Japanese territory.
The launch came a month after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, although experts are highly sceptical of Pyongyang’s claim that the test involved a powerful hydrogen bomb.
Under Kim Jong-un, North Korea has stepped up attempts to build a long-range missile and miniaturise nuclear warheads, claiming that it has the right to develop a nuclear deterrent in the face of US hostility towards the regime.
Analysts said Kim had probably concluded that launching the rocket just weeks after the 6 January nuclear test would limit the UN’s ability to take dramatic punitive steps.
“North Korea likely calculates that a launch so soon after the nuclear test will probably only incrementally affect the UN sanctions arising from that test,” said Alison Evans, a senior analyst at IHS Jane’s.
North Korea is thought to have a small arsenal of atomic bombs, as well as short- and medium-range missiles, but experts believe it is still some way off developing warheads small enough to be mounted on a missile.
There are doubts, too, about the reliability of its long-range missile technology. “An ICBM warhead, unlike a satellite, needs to come down as well as go up,” said John Schilling, an aerospace engineer who has closely followed the North’s missile programme.
“North Korea has never demonstrated the ability to build a reentry vehicle that can survive at even half the speed an ICBM would require. If and when they do, what is presently a theoretical threat will become very real and alarming.”
Kim Jong-un, who became leader in late 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, has overseen two of North Korea’s four nuclear tests as well as three long-range rocket tests.
The country last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending into orbit an object it described as a communications satellite, although intelligence experts say the satellite never functioned properly.
North Korea had notified UN agencies on Saturday that it was moving the time frame for the launch forward to between 7 and 14 February. It had originally said the launch would take place between 8 and 25 February.
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