No decision from U.N. meeting on North Korea

updated 7:43 p.m. ET April 5, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea - The U.S. and its allies sought punishment Sunday 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.

President Barack Obama called for a global response and condemned North Korea for threatening the peace and stability of nations "near and far." Minutes after liftoff, Japan requested the emergency Security Council session in New York.

U.S. and South Korean officials claim the entire rocket, including whatever payload it carried, ended up in the ocean but many world leaders fear the launch indicates the capacity to fire a long-range missile. Pyongyang claims it launched an experimental communications satellite into orbit Sunday and that it's transmitting data and patriotic songs.

"North Korea broke the rules, once again, by testing a rocket that could be used for long-range missiles," Obama said in Prague. "It creates instability in their region, around the world. This provocation underscores the need for action, not just this afternoon in the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."

Council members above all sought a unified response and did not expect to reach agreement on a new resolution, possibly with tighter or added sanctions, until later in the week, diplomats privy to the closed talks said.

While the rogue communist state has repeatedly been belligerent and threatening — as it was when it carried out an underground nuclear blast and tested ballistic missiles in recent years — Pyongyang showed increased savvy this time that may make severe punishment more complicated than ever.

World knew launch was coming
Unlike its previous provocations, the North notified the international community that the launch was coming and the route the rocket would take — although critics of North Korea leader Kim Jong Il claim he really was testing a ballistic missile capable of hitting U.S. territory.

Using a possible loophole in sanctions imposed after the 2006 nuclear test that barred the North from ballistic missile activity, the government claimed it was exercising its right to peaceful space development.

The U.S. said nuclear-armed North Korea clearly violated the resolution, but objections from Russia and China — the North's closest ally — will almost certainly water down any strong response. Both have Security Council veto power.

Obviously today's action by North Korea constitutes a clear violation," said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "My government has called this a provocative act, and we have been in consultation today with our allies in the region and other partners on the Security Council ... to work toward agreement on a strong collective action."

Yukio Takasu, Japan's ambassador to the U.N., called the launch "a clear crime" violating U.N. Security Council demands that posed a grave threat to his nation's security. North Korea had warned that debris might fall off Japan's northern coast when the rocket's first stage fell away, so Tokyo positioned batteries of interceptor missiles on its coast and radar-equipped ships to monitor the launch. Nary a shot was necessary.

Sanctions have had little effect
Analysts say sanctions imposed after the North's underground nuclear test in 2006 appear to have had little effect because implementation was left up to individual countries, some of which showed no will to impose them.

Kim is reportedly a big film buff, and his strategy appears to have borrowed heavily from the 1959 movie "The Mouse That Roared," about a fictional poor country that declares war on the U.S., expecting to lose and get aid like the Marshall Plan that Washington used to help rebuild its World War II foes.

In a statement released just hours after the launch, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said North Korea had informed Moscow ahead of time, and Russian radars tracked it.

Russia urges "all states concerned to show restraint in judgments and action," Nesterenko said.

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