North Korea on Friday launched a new ballistic missile which flew some 800 km before falling into the sea, followed by another missile which may have exploded mid-air, South Korean military officials said.
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The U.S. Mission to the United Nations said it asked for closed consultations on the ballistic missile launch after a council meeting Friday afternoon on Burundi.
The U.N. has been urging all member nations to reinforce these sanctions, in attempts to gain North Korea’s cooperation concerning the ban on ballistic missile testing.
USA defence officials said they had tracked two launches – both believed to be medium-range Rodong missiles fired from road-mobile launch vehicles.
South Korea has expressed its concern to relevant global organizations over North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches, putting further pressure on the communist regime, a government source said Sunday.
The U.S. and South Korea remain technically at war with the North because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce instead of a peace agreement.
Dunford said North Korea keeps investing in military power in order to challenge the competitiveness of the United States, Yonhap reported.
On March 17, the day before North Korea fired two ballistic missiles, US President Barack Obama signed the previously mentioned sanction, which BBC News refers to as “the harshest sanctions against North Korea in decades”.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticized the missile launch, and said that Tokyo will work together with the US and South to monitor the situation.
Recommended: Kim 101: How well do you know North Korea’s leaders? . It has reacted angrily to annual joint military drills by US and South Korean troops that began on March 7, calling the exercises “nuclear war moves” and threatening to wipe out its enemies.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the latest firings were “deeply troubling” and urged Pyongyang to halt “these inflammatory and escalatory actions”, his spokesman said. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.
China voiced its opposition on Thursday to unilateral sanctions against North Korea, saying it could raise tensions in the region, after the United States issued a new round of sanctions on the isolated country for its latest nuclear and rocket tests.
The tests were conducted without North Korea declaring a no-sailing zone in the sea area in the path of the missile.
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While North Korea is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear weapons, its ability to deliver them accurately to a chosen target on the tip of a ballistic missile has been a subject of heated debate.
