UN condemns NKorea launch, pledges significant new sanctions

The Unha rocket used to launch North Korea’s last satellite is believed to be based on the Taepodong long-range ballistic missile, which has an estimated range of around 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers).

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye urged the UN Security Council to respond quickly with “strong punitive measures”.

The United States and its allies had warned Pyongyang it would pay a heavy price for pushing ahead with the launch, but analysts said the North’s timing was meant to minimise the repercussions.

New efforts to toughen missile defense in South Korea and sanctions legislation moving swiftly through Congress could both hurt Chinese interests.

USA and South Korea will begin “in the coming days’ discussions on the implementation of future anti-missile battery, said Mr Cook”.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier Sunday sharply criticized North Korea and said that the launch violated existing United Nations resolutions on Pyongyang’s use of ballistic missile technology.

However, China, North Korea’s key ally and a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, has resisted harsh sanctions sought by the United States and South Korea following the North’s January 6 test of a nuclear device Pyongyang claimed is a hydrogen bomb.

Kim Jong Un has overseen two of the North’s four nuclear tests and three long-range rocket launches since taking over after the death of his father in late 2011.

Japan, long concerned about North Korea’s ballistic missile program, has previously said it was considering THAAD to beef up its defenses.

Pyongyang has remained defiant since it launched the rocket, and issued a statement vowing to “continue launching more man-made satellites”.

“While countries have the right to exploit outer space for peaceful purposes, this must be in accordance with global obligations”, it said.

China had made its position clear to Seoul and Washington, the Foreign Ministry said.

Lockheed referred all questions about a possible THAAD deployment to the USA military.

The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said upcoming South Korea-US military exercises, which infuriate Pyongyang every year, would be the largest ever held.

In a statement, the U.S. Strategic Command said defense officials tracked the launch in a southern trajectory from North Korea over the Yellow Sea.

But critics including Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have said the system could help US radar spot missiles from China.

Kerry says this is the second time in just over a month that North Korea has chosen to conduct “a major provocation, threatening not only the security of the Korean Peninsula, but that of the region and the United States as well”.

The Senate is expected to pass Wednesday the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act that aims to expand and tighten economic restrictions to block the Kim regime’s access to hard currency, targeting both North Korean entities and companies in other countries like China that deal with them.

Sanctions already in place against Pyongyang ban it from working with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, blacklist certain figures and organizations and prohibit the import of luxury goods.