U.N. delays Korean rocket response

SEOUL | North Korea’s rocket launch left the U.N. Security Council with few options for punishing the defiant nation at an emergency session Sunday, despite calls for a “strong” response by President Obama and others.

The session ended after more than three hours with no immediate action other than an agreement to continue consultations.

Long before North Korea shot its multistage Taepodong-2 rocket over Japan and saw it plop into the Pacific on Sunday morning, Japan and South Korea had cut aid to the isolated nation.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the council could not achieve consensus on whether the rocket test violated a 2006 resolution banning North Korea from testing missiles and atomic weapons.

“Members expressed varying views on that topic,” Ms. Rice said.

By calling its action a civilian space launch, North Korea attempted to bypass the 2006 U.N. sanctions.

Washington and Tokyo are drafting a resolution demanding stricter enforcement, and possible expansion, of an existing arms embargo and financial sanctions, Reuters news agency reported.

The United States and many of its allies, including Japan and South Korea, had said a launch would violate the U.N. resolution, which was imposed after the North’s 2006 test of an atomic bomb.

Japan requested the emergency session Sunday afternoon. After it ended, China’s U.N. envoy urged caution.

“I think we are now in a very sensitive moment,” Ambassador Zhang Yesui told reporters. “Regarding the reaction of the Security Council, our position is that it has to be cautious and proportionate.”

Russia, which like China is one of five veto-wielding members of the council, called for a “balanced” approach.

After the launch of the three-stage rocket at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Pyongyang’s official media reported that it had put a communications satellite in orbit.

“The carrier rocket and the satellite developed through our indigenous wisdom and technology are the shining result of efforts to develop the nation’s space science and technology,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

The United States and South Korea said the rocket and the satellite failed to separate and both plunged into the Pacific.

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