Defectors from North Korea and conservative activists release balloons with some leaflets condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and North Korea's rocket launch at the Imjingak Pavilion near the border village of the Panmunjom (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, South Korea, on Monday. The U.S. and its allies sought punishment for North Korea's defiant launch of a rocket that apparently fizzled into the Pacific, holding an emergency U.N. meeting in response to the "provocative act" that some believe was a long-range missile test. The letters on the balloons read " Down Kim Jong Il and denounce North Korea's rocket launch."
The United Nations Security Council began an emergency session Sunday after North Korea fired a long-range rocket over Japan in a show of contempt for international opinion.
The North Koreans say the Taepodong-2 missile, launched from the Musudan-ri base on their northeastern coast, successfully put into orbit a civilian satellite that transmitted scientific data and serenaded the heavens with songs of praise for dictator Kim Jong Il and his late father and predecessor, Kim Il Sung.
But the U.S. military said “no object entered orbit.” North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials said in a statement that the first stage of the rocket fell into the waters between Korea and Japan, while the two other stages, and its payload, landed in the Pacific Ocean.
The blastoff, widely seen as a test of a long-range military missile instead of a peaceful space launch, was condemned around the world. The United States, Japan and South Korea maintain the launch is a violation of a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution barring North Korea from firing ballistic missiles.
“North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint and further isolated itself from the community of nations,” President Obama said in the Czech Republic, urging Pyongyang to honor the U.N. resolutions and to refrain from further “provocative” actions.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said the launch was “not conducive to efforts to promote dialogue, regional peace and stability.”
Contributing: The Associated Press