Security Council 'condemns' North Korea

North Korea needs to "recognise the danger they are putting themselves in" after its latest missile launch, the US Ambassador to the UN says.

United States UN Ambassador Nikki Haley

The UN Security Council has demanded North Korea halt its missile and nuclear weapons programs. (AAP)

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile over Japan, reiterating demands for Pyongyang to halt its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

The UN's most powerful body approved the statement after an emergency meeting on the missile test, calling North Korea's actions "outrageous".

The missile flight came less than a month after the council imposed its toughest-yet sanctions on North Korea.

The statement doesn't discuss any potential new sanctions but calls for strict implementation of existing ones.

"The Security Council, resolute in its commitment to a denuclearised Korean Peninsula, emphasises the vital importance of immediate, concrete actions by the DPRK to reduce tensions in the Korean Peninsula and beyond," the council said.

The council also said it was committed to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation.

"This demonstrates the unity of the security council and sends a strong message to North Korea that the international community will not accept (its behaviour)," Japanese Ambassador Koro Bessho said as the closed-door discussion evolved into an open meeting.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley said: "It is time for North Korea to recognise the danger they are putting themselves in."

While it was meeting in New York, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un expressed "great satisfaction" with the launch and called for more ballistic missile tests targeting the Pacific Ocean.

The agency cast the missile test as a response to ongoing US-South Korean military exercises, annual drills that North Korea sees as a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea had requested a Security Council meeting about the exercises last week.

Instead, the council met at the urging of the US, Japan and South Korea after Tuesday's launch, which sent a missile almost 2700 kilometres into the Pacific Ocean and triggered alert warnings as it soared over northern Japan.


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Source: AAP


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