North Korea fires rocket seen as covert missile test

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned North Korea’s rocket launch as “a flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions” related to Pyongyang’s use of ballistic missile technology.

“We condemn today’s launch and North Korea’s determination to prioritise its missile and nuclear weapons programs over the well-being of its people, whose struggles only intensify with North Korea’s diversion of scarce resources to such destabilising activities”, Rice said.

The statement says Beijing hopes all relevant parties will calmly deal with the issue, act with discretion and not take actions that may cause further escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The US-led campaign to impose harsh new sanctions on North Korea over its latest nuclear test have faced opposition from the North’s main diplomatic protector, China.

KYODO/REUTERS North Korea has defended the launch as merely an attempt to send a satellite into space.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye called the launch an “intolerable provocation”.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the launch “absolutely unacceptable”.

North Korea put its first satellite into space in 2012 and has since upgraded its launch site on the nation’s northwest coast about 50 kilometers from the Chinese border to accommodate larger rockets. Following North Korea’s most recent launch, according to Reuters, the Security Council is expected to hold an emergency meeting Sunday.

The Japanese government said the rocket was launched heading for the direction of Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa and flown over the prefecture at around 9:41 a.m. local time.

Despite Pyongyang’s bellicose claims to the contrary, the North is still seen as being years away from developing a credible inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). But it has encountered a number of failures along the way including a three-stage rocket which exploded after takeoff and fell into the sea in April 2012 and another satellite orbit in April 2009 which the US and South Korea said had failed.

The launch now contravenes resolutions set out by the UN Security Council which prohibits any launch used with ballistic missile technology with South Korea warning that North Korea would pay a “severe price” if the launch went ahead.

South Korean Defense 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. The penalties would target North Korean trading partners believed to be involved in the country’s nuclear weapons program and cyberwarfare operations. While many doubt the validity of the H-bomb test, North Korea is a nuclear power and thought to have at least a dozen nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

While Pyongyang claims that its space program is entirely peaceful, many worldwide observers think the true objective is military.