N. Korea Launch Sparks Condemnation

U.S. Says U.N. Must Send Strong Signal; Japan May Call For Sanctions

(CBS/AP) 
Wang expressed concern at the missile tests, but left far more ambiguity about how much council action would be acceptable to China.

"Certainly I think this is not the first time the Security Council takes action on this particular issue, because we had a precedence in 1998. So if all council members feel that some appropriate action is needed by the council, then we will see," he said.

In September 1998, following North Korea's launch of a satellite that the State Department initially believed was a missile test, the council approved only a press statement, which does not even become part of its official record.

It urged Pyongyang not to launch another satellite or other object without warning, and called on neighboring countries to refrain from taking retaliatory action.

On Wednesday, Wang stressed the importance of constructive actions to maintain peace.

Asked what the council could do to promote peace, he replied: "I think that in 1998 similar circumstances that the Security Council issued some sort of comments or statements."

"The next step is that the U.S. and Japan will get the toughest resolution they can at the U.N., demanding that North Korea stop the launches and return to the six-party talks," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

North Korea fired seven missiles early Wednesday. All apparently fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan. About 35 seconds after the launch, officials say the long-range missile either failed outright or was aborted by plan, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews. It did not reach deep space and posed no danger to Japan or the United States.

"The headline should read that the North Korea launch is a failure. This is an incredibly immature regime in the north. That's the part that frightens me about them. They so miscalculate the world's reaction," Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., told CBS News' The Early Show.

The seventh test came after a North Korean foreign ministry official had defended North Korea's missile tests as a matter of national sovereignty, reports a Japanese TV station aired in South Korea.

North Korea's "strong war deterrent" has kept the country at peace, the North's state-run broadcaster said Wednesday. An announcer on the Korean Central Broadcasting Station also said that North Korea was prepared to cope with any provocation by the United States.

North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Pak Gil Yon refused to talk to reporters when he arrived at his country's U.N. mission, shielding himself with a large black umbrella against the rain and the media barrage.