In defiance of international warnings, North Korea launched a long-range rocket Sunday morning, a move widely seen as a test for a missile capable of striking the mainland United States.
The move was expected - Pyongyang had given warnings to maritime and airspace authorities, and analysts had detected movement at its launch site - but coming just a month after a nuclear test, it nevertheless showed Kim Jong Un's continued willingness to defy the international community.
The United States immediately condemned the launch, and the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting for later Sunday to discuss North Korea's latest provocation.
South Korea's defense ministry said a rocket was launched from North Korea's west coast, near the border with South Korea, between 9:30 a.m. and 9:45 a.m. Seoul time, according to the Associated Press, while Japanese media outlets reported that debris from the launch landed in the East China Sea, about 150 miles from the launch site, about 14 minutes later.
Kim's regime had said it would launch a Kwangmyongsong-3 ("lode star") satellite into orbit between Feb. 7 and 14, and the launch came just a few hours after that window began.
North Korea previously fired a Kwangmyongsong-3 on an Unha-3 ("galaxy") missile into orbit in December 2012, the month that North Korea marked the first anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, the current leader's father. This month's launch also coincides with another key date: North Korea's celebration of Kim Jong Il's birthday Feb. 16.
North Korea has said the launches were of satellites intended for scientific purposes, but analysts and many governments see this as a disguised missile test. North Korea has successfully launched short- and medium-range missiles but has been working to develop a reliable long-range intercontinental ballistic missile. Every test that it conducts reveals problems or successes and helps it get closer to this goal.
Susan Rice, President Obama's national security adviser, said that the launch using ballistic missile technology, following so closely after North Korea's fourth nuclear test, "represents yet another destabilizing and provocative action and is a flagrant violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions."
"North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs represent serious threats to our interests - including the security of some of our closest allies - and undermine peace and security in the broader region," she said in a statement.
"We condemn today's launch and North Korea's determination to prioritize 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 destabilizing activities."
Rice also reiterated calls - mainly directed at China, North Korea's closest ally and a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council - for the international community to "stand together and demonstrate to North Korea that its reckless actions must have serious consequences."
A series of U.N. resolutions has prohibited North Korea from carrying out nuclear or ballistic missile tests, but Kim's regime has shown little regard for these orders.
Last month, it conducted its fourth nuclear test, and its first in almost three years, although analysts dismissed North Korea's claims that the device was a hydrogen bomb. The test was immediately met with calls for harsh sanctions against North Korea, and moves are afoot both in the United States Congress and at the United Nations to punish Pyongyang.
North Korea has also recently claimed to have mastered launching a missile from a submarine, although analysts have said the claims also appear to have been exaggerated.
Still, with the repeated tests and launches, Kim has shown that he is intent on proceeding with his "byungjin" policy of developing the nuclear program and the economy simultaneously. Likewise, in the face of repeated calls to return to multilateral denuclearization talks, Kim has made clear that he wants North Korea to be seen as a nuclear state and that his weapons program is not up for negotiation.
The Washington Post
Sun Feb 07 2016
A South Korean man watches a TV news program with a file footage about North Korea's rocket launch at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016. - AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
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