North Korea has claimed it successfully launched a satellite into space aboard a long-range rocket from the Sohae Space Center in Cholsan County, North Phyongan province.
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Archival photo of North Korea’s satellite launch in 2012.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a statement issued here Saturday night, called the latest rocket launch “deeply deplorable” and the move is in violation of relevant Security Council resolutions “despite the united plea of the global community against such an act”.
On Sunday, the UN Security Council held an emergency session and called for a response to North Korea’s launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite atop a long-range rocket.
It comes just weeks after Pyongyang claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb, despite being under United Nations sanctions since its first nuclear test in 2006.
A statement approved by all 15 members of the UN Security Council said that regardless of North Korea’s labelling, the launch contributes to its development of systems to deliver nuclear weapons.
“We would see the deployment as soon as possible”, said the spokesman, Peter Cook, in a press conference.
The government also said it will expand its psychological warfare of anti-North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts, a tactic that irritates North Korea.
Cook declined to state when exactly the US and South Korea would move forward with the talks. The UN’s most powerful body pledged to quickly adopt a new resolution with “significant” new sanctions.
United Nations sanctions imposed on North Korea over the past decade have failed to prevent Pyongyang from expanding its nuclear and missile programs, a United Nations panel of experts says, while the U.S. has used the North’s activities as a pretext for expanding its military build-up in Asia.
The members of the Security Council expressed their commitment to continue working toward a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation leading to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
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The rocket was launched around 9:30 a.m. Seoul time (7.30 p.m. ET/0030 GMT) in a southward trajectory as planned.
