North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday, saying that the rocket carries a satellite.
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An undated file picture released by the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling North Korean Workers Party, showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un saluting military servicemen.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it “expresses regret” about North Korea’s “insistence on implementing a launch of missile technology in the face of global opposition”.
U.S. Ambassador to UN Samantha Power while speaking to press said, “We will ensure that the Security Council imposes serious consequences”.
The US, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, Britain and France, as well as the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, were swift to condemn the launch.
North Korea said the launch, which came Sunday morning about two hours after an eight-day windown opened, was to put a satellite into orbit.
The members of the Security Council restated their intent to develop significant measures in a new Security Council resolution in response to the nuclear test conducted by the DPRK on January 6, it said.
The test, the DPRK claimed as its first hydrogen bomb, was the fourth of nuclear detonations following tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013 respectively.
It was not immediately clear whether the South Korean and Japanese chiefs of staff would participate in the meeting in person or via secure video teleconference, the sources said.
North Korea last launched a long range rocket in 2012.
While the claim was met with skepticism in Washington, it has nonetheless heightened concerns over the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The UN has said it will speed up work on a sanctions resolution in response to what it called “these risky and serious violations”.
Russian Federation also denounced the missile launch.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command said Sunday that the rocket never posed a threat to North America.
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The rocket was believed to have been blasted off from a launch pad in Tongchang-ri which is close to the country’s northwestern border with China according to reports from the South Korean Ministry of Defense.
