“The members of the Security Council strongly condemned this launch”, the UNSC president said.
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Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan has added his voice to the growing number of expressions of condemnation.
“There will eventually be a sanctions resolution”, the diplomat said.
South Korea says it is to begin discussing with the U.S. the deployment of a missile defence system.
The launch was hailed by North Korean media as a “fascinating vapour… trailing in the clear and blue sky in spring of February on the threshold of the Day of the Shining Star”.
China and the US have been working on a new sanctions resolution against Kim Jun Un’s regime since it conducted a nuclear test on January 6. Chinese customs data showed that North Korea imported more than $2 billion in luxury goods between 2012 and 2014, including Mercedes Benz cars and luxury yachts. The missile did not pose a threat to the USA or its allies, officials said.
Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, broke into its normal programming to quote a Japanese government statement that said the rocket passed over the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
Seoul is characterizing the launch as a “failure”, with South Korean military officials saying key parts of the rocket disappeared from radar screens as it tracked the event.
“Australia calls on the North Korean leader to focus on the plight of the long suffering people of North Korea”.
It said the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, “determined that at no time was the missile a threat to North America”.
SEOUL/TOKYO North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday carrying what it has called a satellite, but its neighbours and Washington denounced the launch as a missile test, conducted in defiance of United Nations sanctions and just weeks after a nuclear bomb test.
“We are compelled to state clearly that Pyongyang has not listened to the calls of the worldwide community, having once again demonstrated glaring disregard for the norms of global law”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
But authorities in Tokyo said no defense missiles were fired.
Among the other permanent Security Council members, Britain, France and Russian Federation expressed anger and concern, while North Korea’s main diplomatic protector China voiced “regret”.
He said the Americans had been pushing for tough new measures that went beyond targeting North Korea’s atomic weapons and missile programs, while China wanted any future steps to focus on the question of nonproliferation. If they have only rockets, that’s not that intimidating, either.
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The council has imposed four sets of sanctions on North Korea since it first tested an atomic device in 2006.
