North Korea reportedly fired two short-range missiles yesterday in a move set to heighten tensions after its latest nuclear weapons test drew global condemnation.
The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to consider the options after Pyongyang’s test of a nuclear device on Monday, which some estimates said was almost as powerful as the atomic bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Security Council called the test a “clear violation” of international law and immediately began working on a resolution that could impose new sanctions on the secretive North, which has now tested two nuclear bombs in three years.
“This resolution should include new sanctions in addition to those already adopted because such behavior should have a cost and a price to pay,” Deputy French Ambassador to the UN Jean-Pierre Lacroix said.
Following the UN condemnation, North Korea launched one ground-to-air missile and one ground-to-ship missile into the sea yesterday off its eastern coast near the city of Hamhung, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
“Intelligence authorities are analyzing the motives for the firing,” it quoted a South Korean government source as saying, adding that each missile had a range of 130km.
Last month, Pyongyang test-fired a long-range rocket that critics say was in fact a ballistic missile, and on Monday it test-fired three short-range missiles after the nuclear blast.
Russia estimated the force of Monday’s underground nuclear explosion at up to 20 kilotonnes, far more powerful than the October 2006 test.
North Korea said the latest test would “contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism, and ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and the region.”
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