North Korea Fires Second Ballistic Missile Over Japan

North Korea on Friday fired a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific.

The launch was in response to the new U.N. sanctions which were imposed by the security council over the country’s ballistic missile and atomic weapons programs.

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The ballistic missile, which was fired from the isolated country’s capital city, Pyongyang, appeared to be its furthest-ever missile flight as tensions rise in the region. It flew higher and further than one fired over Japan late last month, reaching an altitude of about 770km (478 miles), traveling 3,700km before landing in the sea off Hokkaido.

U.N. Sanctions On North Korea

The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution to impose new sanctions on North Korea on Monday.

The sanctions targeted North Korea’s oil imports, textile exports, overseas labor contracts, suppress smuggling efforts, stop joint ventures with other nations and sanction designated North Korean government entities.

Following the vote on Monday, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley said:

“Today, we are saying the world will never accept a nuclear armed North Korea, and today the Security Council is saying that if the North Korean regime does not halt its nuclear program, we will act to stop it ourselves.”

“We are done trying to prod the regime to do the right thing, we are now trying to stop it from having the ability to do the wrong thing,” she added.

The new sanctions, which are the harshest yet to North Korea, could have been a lot harsher according to a U.S. official familiar with the negotiations.

A full oil import ban and sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un himself were dropped at the last minute by the U.S. in order to gain the support of Russia and China.

Reactions To North Korea’s Launch

Following the launch, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his country would “never tolerate” such “dangerous provocative action” while South Korea responded within minutes by firing two ballistic missiles of its own into the sea.

The South Korean missile traveled 250 kilometers with a trajectory intentionally chosen to represent the distance to North Korea’s missile launch site at Sunan, near Pyongyang’s airport.

Read Also: North Korea Violates UN Security Council Resolutions

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson condemned the launch from Pyongyang as the U.N. Security Council will meet later on Friday in New York at the request of America and Japan.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the launch was “another reckless breach of UN resolutions” and a “major threat” to international peace and security “which demands a global response.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, in a press conference on Friday, reemphasized Beijing’s “resolution” on pushing for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

“China has strictly and comprehensively implemented the resolutions of the UN Security Council,” Hua said, adding the country has “paid a great price and made sacrifices.”