North Korea launched a long-range rocket Wednesday morning despite international opposition and growing tensions in the region. Pyongyang claimed the Unha-3 rocket successfully delivered a scientific satellite into orbit.
Seoul has strongly condemned the launch as a violation of UN resolutions, with the South Korean president calling for an emergency meeting over the issue. The launch was confirmed by officials at the South Korean Defense Ministry and its Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Shortly after liftoff, the Aegis radar system in the Yellow Sea detected the move,” a senior South Korean military official said, Yonhap news agency reports.
North Korea said the Unha-3 rocket delivered a Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite into orbit as planned.
“The second version of satellite Kwangmyongsong-3 successfully lifted off from the Sohae Space Center by carrier rocket Unha-3 on Wednesday,” the official Korean Central News Agency said. “The satellite entered its preset orbit.”
However critics believe this could be a ballistic missile test, which the UN has banned North Korea from conducting.
The debris of the missile fell into waters off the Philippines at 10:05 a.m. local time after passing over Okinawa, the Japanese government said, according to Yonhap. An official in Seoul told the news agency that the first stage of the North Korean rocket fell in the Yellow Sea.
A Japanese government spokesman protested the launch but urged the Japanese people to go on with their lives as normal. Japan did not activate its PAC-3 missile defense system in response.
This move comes as a surprise as Pyongyang announced Monday it was extending its launch period for the rocket test by one week to Dec. 29.
Earlier, the US Navy had sent two additional warships to North Korea to track and prepare for a possible North Korean rocket launch, bringing the total number of warships surrounding the Communist state to four.
The United States and the United Nations have expressed concern that North Korea may be testing its missile technology to see if it could be used to eventually strike the US. This is Pyongyang’s second attempt at such a launch this year – an attempt that the US views as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The UN has banned the secretive Communist nation from conducting any ballistic missile tests.
