SEOUL — The U.N. Security Council on Sunday strongly condemned North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket that world leaders denounced as a banned test of dangerous ballistic missile technology and another “intolerable provocation.”
Since its Jan. 6 nuclear test, which the North said was a powerful hydrogen bomb but experts believe was not, China and the United States have been negotiating the text of a new Security Council sanctions resolution.
North Korea, which calls its launches part of a peaceful space program, said it had successfully put a new Earth observation satellite, the Kwangmyongsong 4, or Shining Star 4, into orbit less than 10 minutes after liftoff, and vowed more such launches.
The Security Council 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 and violate four Security Council resolutions dating back to the North’s first nuclear test in 2006.
North Korea under Kim Jong Un has pledged to bolster its nuclear arsenal unless Washington scraps what Pyongyang calls a hostile policy meant to collapse Kim’s government.
