North Korea fires long-range rocket defying international pressure

A defiant North Korea on Sunday fired a long-range rocket, drawing strong rebuke from its neighbours and the US which believed the launch was a cover for testing Pyongyang's missile technology.

The rocket was fired from a launch pad on North Korea's east coast 15 seconds past 11:30 a.m. local time (0800 hrs IST plus 15 seconds), South Korea's presidential office said while expressing strong regret over Pyongyang's "reckless action."

Reacting to the launch, US president Barack Obama, who is in Prague, called it a "provocative" act amounting to a test of Taepodong-2 missile and sought a UN Security Council meet.

"The launch on Sunday of a Taepodong-2 missile was a clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, which prohibits North Korea from conducting ballistic missile-related activities of any kind," Obama said in a statement issued from the Czech capital Prague.

"With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations," he said.

A senior South Korean foreign ministry official called the North's rocket a "space vehicle" which, he believed, carried a satellite.

"We believe North Korea fired a rocket carrying a satellite," the official was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency. However, it did not necessarily mean that the launch was a success.

The Taepodong-2 missile is believed to have a range of more than 6,000 kilometres, capable of reaching US territory, but a test launch in July 2006 apparently failed.

Among the major worries that arose from the rocket launch is that the technology used to put satellites into space can also be used for ballistic missiles, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.

While notifying international agencies of its planned launch, the North had said earlier that its multistage rocket would fly over Japan's northeastern region and designated two "danger" areas. It suggested the rocket's first booster would fall into the Sea of Japan about 130 km off the coast of Akita Prefecture, and the second into the middle of the Pacific Ocean between Japan and Hawaii.

Soon after the launch, Japan, which along with allies US and South Korea believed the North Korean action was a cover for a long-range ballistic missile test in contravention of a UNSC resolution, sought an urgent Security Council meeting.

Accepting Tokyo's request, the UN Security Council approved holding of a crisis session in New York shortly.

The Japanese broadcaster NHK said the multi-stage rocket flew over Japan and landed in Pacific Ocean.

Expressing its "regret and disappointment" over the North's action, the South Korean Presidential office said that Pyongyang has caused "a serious threat" to peace on the Korean Peninsula. President Lee Myung-bak instructed the military to bolster its vigilance against emergency situations.

At the State Department in Washington, spokesman Fred Lash also called the North Korean rocket launch a "provocative act."

The US would "certainly" take "appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it can't threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity and acts like these," he said.

After Pyongyang carried out a nuclear test in 2006, the UN Security Council had adopted a resolution that imposed sanctions on military goods and luxury products to North Korea and warned the Communist state against carrying out any further atomic or ballistic missile tests.

Without mentioning the rocket launch, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said after the test on Sunday that the Communist state's "peaceful space development plan" had the support of "political parties and groups of many countries".

China, the closest ally of North Korea, said that it has taken note of the rocket launch by Pyongyang.

"We have taken notice of the launching activity by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sunday morning," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said.

Jiang said Beijing has also taken note of responses from relevant parties.