British Deputy Ambassador Peter Wilson said the council should consider further action if North Korea presses on with the provocative missile launches.
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“This is an outrageous act that can not be tolerated”.
The 15-member Security Council met at the request of Japan and the United States following the latest in a series of launches by North Korea.
“The United States continues to believe that our response to North Korea’s destabilizing activities is stronger when the global community remains united”, Earnest said.
The European Union said the North was “clearly violating” its worldwide obligations set out in multiple United Nations resolutions.
The country’s Foreign Minister, Yun Byung-se, said the launches showed exactly why THAAD was needed, according to Yonhap News Agency.
The council has repeatedly condemned North Korea’s missile launches, but a US-drafted statement circulated last month following an apparent submarine-launched missile test has bogged down in discussion with China.
The second stage of a missile fired over Japan had splashed down inside the EEZ off Japan’s Pacific Ocean coast in 1998.
“It is regrettable to see People’s Daily make such a unilateral argument that THAAD would hurt the strategic balance in the region and China’s security interests”, a South Korean government official said on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, expressed confidence that the Security Council would issue a swift condemnation of North Korea.
Ten Security Council members, along with Australia and South Korea, asked the United Nations sanctions committee to “review carefully the known details” about the July 18 launch of three Scud ballistic missiles and a No Dong intermediate-range missile. But North Korea called them satellite launches while Washington, Seoul and Tokyo said they were disguised tests of missile technology.
“Our commitment to the defense of our allies, including the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Japan, in the face of these threats, is ironclad”, Ross said.
Opinion is divided on the deployment of the THAAD battery in South Korea.
Japan’s Bessho responded that his country had not done anything to invite Wednesday’s missile launch and said there was no justification for it which is why “we are strongly condemning the launch”.
She said North Korea’s missile launch on Wednesday reflects a worsening security environment.
It said it had miniaturised a nuclear warhead and successfully tested an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile that could reach the U.S. mainland.
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While some experts say the claims are exaggerated, most acknowledge that the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes have made significant strides.
