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| /Yonhap |
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Sunday strongly condemned North Korea's rocket launch and said it would soon "adopt a new resolution" with significant measures, various news outlets reported.
"The members of the Security Council underscore that this launch, as well as any other DPRK launch that uses ballistic missile technology even if characterized as a satellite launch or a space launch vehicle, contribute to the DPRK's nuclear weapon delivery system and is a serious violation of the Security Council resolutions," Venezuelan U.N. Ambassador Rafael Dario Ramirez Carreno, the council's president, was quoted as saying after the closed-door meeting.
China, Pyongyang's ally, and the 14 other council members backed the statement during an emergency meeting.
The closed-door meeting came at the request of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan, the three members of the six-party talks on the North's nuclear program, less than a day after the long-range rocket launch.
South Korea Monday hailed the Security Council's statement.
"We welcome the Security Council's vow to ‘expeditiously adopt a new resolution' against North Korea," said an official at Seoul's foreign ministry, according to Yonhap.
Also on Monday, South Korea's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the North.
Sunday's launch put what Pyongyang claims was a "Kwangmyongsong-4" satellite into orbit.
But the North is suspected of using the launch as a cover for test-firing an ICBM with a range of some 1,000 kilometers, given that the technologies for both are almost identical.
The U.S.-led allies view the launch as a part of the program to develop a nuclear-tipped ICBM, ultimately aimed at striking the U.S. mainland.
The UNSC has already been working on a resolution of sanctions on North Korea for its purported test of a hydrogen bomb on Jan. 6.
President Park Geun-hye on Sunday called on the council to introduce strong sanctions quickly, as she condemned the North's launch as an "unacceptable provocation." China has expressed regret.
Earlier, the U.N. labeled the launch "deeply deplorable." The U.S. also denounced North Korea.
"North Korea's launch using ballistic missile technology represents yet another destabilizing and provocative action and is a flagrant violation of multiple UNSC resolutions," U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said in a statement.
Japan termed the launch "absolutely intolerable."
Since assuming power after his father Kim Jong-il died late in 2011, Kim Jong-un has led two of the North's four nuclear tests and three long-range rocket launches. The U.N. Security Council has banned North Korea from nuclear and ballistic missile activity.
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| North Korean Central News Agency reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observed the launch of what it claimed as an Earth observation satellite "Kwangmyongsong-4" Sunday. / Yonhap |
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