Meanwhile, the State Department says Secretary of State John Kerry has called the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan to discuss North Korea’s rocket launch using ballistic missile technology.
Advertisement
North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday carrying what it called a satellite, but its neighbours and the United States denounced the launch as a missile test, conducted in defiance of U.N. sanctions and just weeks after a nuclear bomb test.
“In line with this commitment and the gravity of this most recent violation, the members of the Security Council will adopt expeditiously a new Security Council resolution with such measures in response to these risky and serious violations”, he said. The statement approved by all 15 council members underscored that launches using ballistic missile technology, “even if characterized as a satellite launch or space launch vehicle” contribute to North Korea’s development of systems to deliver nuclear weapons.
South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said a South Korean Aegis-equipped destroyer detected the North Korean launch at 9:31 a.m. The rocket’s first stage fell off North Korea’s west coast at 9:32 a.m., and the rocket disappeared from South Korean radars at 9:36 a.m. off the southwestern coast.
South Korea is on high alert for any signs of additional provocations by the North a day after Pyongyang launched a long range rocket. A USA official said it might take days to assess whether the launch was a success. He said a new resolution should “do the work of reducing tension, of working toward denuclearization [of the Korean peninsula], of maintaining peace and stability, and of encouraging a negotiated solution”.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose country is also a North Korean ally, said: “It has to be a weighty resolution, but it also has to be a reasonable resolution” that doesn’t lead to North Korea’s economic or humanitarian collapse, or further heighten tensions.
For North Korea’s propaganda machine, the long-range rocket launch Sunday carved a glorious trail of “fascinating vapour” through the clear blue sky. Based upon its trajectory as we are tracking it, it does not pose a threat to the USA or our allies.
“If it can communicate with the Kwangmyongsong-4, North Korea will learn about operating a satellite in space”, said David Wright, co-director and senior scientist at the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Advertisement
Mr Hammond said: “What we will be doing, the United States and Japan will be doing, is seeking to persuade the Chinese that it’s in the interests of all the worldwide community now to apply some more direct economic pressure on North Korea at this point”.
