NEW YORK: Japan, the United States and seven other countries issued a joint statement on Friday condemning North Korea’s launch Sunday of an intermediate-range ballistic missile.

The launch is “a significant escalation in the DPRK’s recent violations of multiple Security Council resolutions and seeks to further destabilize the region,” the statement said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“We condemn this unlawful action in the strongest terms,” said the statement, issued after a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council convened to discuss its response to Pyongyang’s latest missile test.

The Security Council has met three times this year to discuss North Korea’s missile launches. Sunday’s firing was the country’s seventh round of missile launches this year.

The United States has been pushing for the Security Council to issue a statement that will condemn the North Korean actions, but China and Russia oppose the move, diplomatic sources familiar with the discussions said.

“The cost of the Council’s ongoing silence is too high,” the nine countries’ joint statement said.

“It will embolden the DPRK to further defy the international community, to normalize its violations of Security Council resolutions, to further destabilize the region, and to continue to threaten international peace and security,” the statement said. “This is an outcome that we should not accept.”

JIJI Press