President Yoon Suk Yeol presides over a National Security Council meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on Aug. 21. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered the National Security Council on Thursday to share its analysis of North Korea's botched space rocket launch with the United States and Japan and to prepare against possible additional provocations by the North, his office said.
Yoon gave the instructions as he was briefed on North Korea's second launch of what it claimed was a military reconnaissance satellite that ended in failure earlier in the day.
"The president was briefed on the NSC standing committee's discussions, and ordered that the agreements reached at the Camp David South Korea-US-Japan summit be thoroughly implemented, such as the real-time sharing of missile warning data, increased missile defense cooperation, and regular trilateral exercises," the presidential office said in a press release, referring to an emergency NSC meeting convened after the launch.
"He also ordered that today's analysis results be shared with the United States and Japan, and for thorough preparations against the possibility of further provocations by North Korea," it added.
The launch came as South Korea and the US have been holding joint military exercises that North Korea condemns as invasion rehearsals. The North blamed the botched launch on an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight and vowed to conduct another launch in October.
The NSC meeting was led by National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong and attended by Foreign Minister Park Jin, Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho, Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup, National Intelligence Service Director Kim Kyou-hyun and other officials.
The council "strongly condemned" the launch as a "grave violation" of UN Security Council resolutions banning any North Korean launch using ballistic missile technology.
"The participants noted that North Korea failed again at a so-called 'space vehicle' launch following the one in May, and deplored that it is shifting the responsibility for the economic mismanagement and broken public livelihoods that have forced its people into starvation and death, to lower-level officials, and squandering the little resources it has on reckless provocations," the presidential office said.
The council vowed to make North Korea pay the due price for its repeated violations of UNSC resolutions and to work together with the international community, including the US and Japan, to stop North Korea's illegal actions, including exploitation of labor exports, cyber hacking and maritime smuggling. (Yonhap)
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