North Korea has fired a volley of short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast after the UN security council unanimously approved the toughest sanctions against the regime in two decades over its nuclear and rocket tests.

South Korean defence spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said the launches came from the eastern coastal town of Wonsan. Another South Korean official from the joint chiefs of staff said the six projectiles flew about 100-150km (60-90 miles) before landing in the sea.

The US State Department said it had seen reports of the launches and was monitoring the situation.



North Korea has previously carried out live firing near or across its borders when facing international condemnation.



Thursday’s launch was seen as a low-level response to the UN sanctions, with Pyongyang unlikely to launch any major provocation until a landmark ruling Workers’ party convention in May, according to Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.



The US and North Korea’s increasingly uneasy ally China spent seven weeks negotiating the new sanctions passed by the security council on Wednesday. They include mandatory inspections of cargo leaving and entering North Korea by sea or air, a ban on all sales or transfers of small arms and light weapons to Pyongyang, and expulsion of diplomats from the North who engage in “illicit activities”.



The US, its western allies and Japan pressed for new sanctions that went beyond the North’s nuclear and missile programs but China, Pyongyang’s neighbor, was reluctant to impose measures that could threaten the stability of North Korea and cause its economy to collapse. Nonetheless, Beijing did agree to several economic measures.

The resolution bans the export of coal, iron and iron ore being used to fund North Korea’s nuclear or ballistic missile programs and it prohibits all exports of gold, titanium ore, vanadium ore and rare earth minerals. It also bans aviation fuel exports to the country, including “kerosene-type rocket fuel”.

“The international community, speaking with one voice, has sent Pyongyang a simple message: North Korea must abandon these dangerous programs and choose a better path for its people,” Barack Obama said in a statement.

US ambassador Samantha Power told the council after the vote that “part of the perverse reality that has no equal in this world” is that North Korea prioritizes its nuclear and ballistic missile programs over the basic needs of its own people.

“Virtually all of the DPRK’s [North Korea] resources are channeled into its reckless and relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,” she said.

The resolution stresses that the new measures are not intended to have “adverse humanitarian consequences” for civilians, the majority who face economic hardships and food shortages.

In the financial and banking sector, countries are required to freeze the assets of companies and other entities linked to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. Under a previous resolution, they were encouraged to do so.

The resolution also prohibits all countries from opening new branches, subsidiaries and representative offices of North Korean banks, and bans financial institutions from establishing new joint ventures or establishing or maintaining correspondent relationships with these banks. It also orders countries to close all North Korean banks and terminate all banking relationships within 90 days.

Under the four rounds of UN sanctions imposed since the country’s first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea is banned from importing or exporting nuclear or missile items and technology as well as luxury goods. The new resolution expands the list of banned items, adding luxury items such as expensive watches, snowmobiles, recreational water vehicles and lead crystal.

It also adds 16 individuals, 12 “entities” including the National Aerospace Development Agency which was responsible for February’s rocket launch, and 31 ships owned by the North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management Company to the sanctions blacklist. That requires the freezing of assets and, in the case of individuals, a travel ban as well.

The resolution bans Pyongyang from chartering vessels or aircraft, and call on countries to “de-register” any vessel owned, operated or crewed by the North.

As with previous resolutions, the test will be whether UN member states enforce the sanctions. A UN panel of experts monitoring the sanctions has repeatedly pointed out that enforcement in a significant number of cases has been weak.

North Korea has ignored many demands, and tried to circumvent others.

It started off the new year with what it claims was its first hydrogen bomb test on 6 January and followed up with the launch of a satellite on a rocket on 7 February. It was condemned by much of the world as a test of banned missile technology.

The resolution calls for a resumption of six-party talks leading to the goal of “the verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner”. North Korea withdrew from the talks in 2008.

The North’s launches in to the Sea of Japan also came shortly after Seoul approved its first legislation on human rights in North Korea.

The South Korean bill passed ahead of the UN security council vote on sanctions.

A total of 212 South Korean lawmakers voted for the bill and 24 others abstained in the floor vote. It becomes law when it is endorsed by the cabinet council, considered a formality.

North Korea’s state media has warned that enactment of the law would result in “miserable ruin.”

With Reuters and the Associated Press