NKorea's rocket launch was a failure: analysts

After three hours of closed-door talks, the United Nations Security Council failed to reach agreement on how to respond to North Korea's long-range rocket launch seen by most Western nations as a clear violation of U.N. resolutions.

"Members of the Security Council agreed to continue consultations on an appropriate action by the council in accordance with its responsibilities given the urgency of the matter," Mexico's U.N. ambassador Claude Heller, the council chair this month, told reporters after the meeting.

South Korea Monday vowed a stern response and Japan threatened new sanctions after North Korea's rocket launch, but the United Nations struggled for agreement on whether to punish the communist state.

Possible non-binding statement

"North Korea's reckless act that threatens regional and global security cannot be justified under any circumstances," South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak said in a radio address, promising a "stern" response to provocations.

Japan's government will decide Friday on new bilateral sanctions in response to Sunday's launch, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said in Tokyo.

"Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something," U.S. President Barack Obama said during a speech in Prague earlier Sunday about ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

North Korea's reckless act that threatens regional and global security cannot be justified under any circumstances

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak

"Relevant parties must ... avoid taking actions that could make the situation even more tense," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in a statement posted on the foreign ministry website.

Diplomats said China and Russia, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, are likely to block any bid by the United States and its Western allies to push for new sanctions on North Korea over the latest rocket launch.

But a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the council might take up a resolution or a non-binding statement that would reaffirm existing sanctions.

Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something

U.S. President Barack Obama

North Korea's third failure

North Korea has failed in its third attempt since 1998 to build an accurate long-range missile, analysts say, undercutting its image as a defiant state able to project its power across the ocean.

The communist North claimed it had launched a satellite Sunday that was now circling the globe, transmitting data and patriotic songs praising secretive leader Kim Jong-Il.

But the United States and South Korea say the launch failed to get anything into orbit, and experts said the rocket's second and third stages apparently did not separate as planned.

"(It) was a failure," Joseph Bermudez of Jane's Information Group told AFP.

"It seems to indicate that North Korea has not been able to demonstrate a reliable system capable of being an ICBM or a space launch vehicle."

A senior Russian military source confirmed the U.S. and South Korean reports that North Korea failed to place a satellite in orbit, the Interfax news agency reported.

Testing intercontinental ballistic missile

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo said the launch was a smoke-screen for testing a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which at maximum range could theoretically hit the U.S. states of Alaska and Hawaii.

Bermudez said current information indicated the second stage did not drop, meaning the rocket was too heavy to sustain flight.

He described it as a step back from the 1998 launch of a Taepodong-1, which achieved first- and second-stage separation while the third stage failed.

The only previous test of a Taepodong-2, in 2006, lasted just 40 seconds.

Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank, also assessed the exercise as a failure based on reports available so far.

"There was some problem with the separation of the second and third stage," he said.

"A big step forward"

While the North is not believed to have configured a warhead for the Taepodong-2, a successful launch Sunday would have added to international concerns about the North's capabilities.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service described it as a successful rocket test but a failed satellite launch, according to lawmakers who attended a closed-door briefing of parliament's intelligence committee.

Chae Yeon-Seok of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute said that while the rocket apparently failed, it flew much farther than in 1998.

He called it "a big step forward in the North's rocket technology."

It is a big step forward in the North's rocket technology

Chae Yeon-Seok, Korea Aerospace Research Institute