SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has launched a long-range rocket, U.S. and South Korean officials confirmed to CNN on Sunday.

The payload of the rocket remains unclear. North Korea has said the rocket was to carry a satellite into space, but the United States, South Korea and other nations fear it could be a missile with a warhead attached.

Earlier Sunday, before the launch, South Korea’s national security council called an emergency meeting amid concerns that a North Korean rocket launch was imminent, a presidential spokesperson told CNN Sunday.

The rocket — launched at about 11:30 a.m. Sunday (10:30 p.m. ET Saturday) — was a “provocative act in violation” of U.N. Security Council resolution on North Korea’s weapons program, said Fred Lash, a State Department spokesman, told reporters.

A senior Obama administration official confirmed that the rocked did clear Japan.

On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama reiterated that the United States strongly opposes any such launch.

“We have made it very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative, it puts enormous strains on the Six Party talks and that they should stop the launch,” Obama said while on a stop in France.
advertisement

Obama warned that the United States will join with its allies to take “appropriate steps” to let North Korea know it can’t violate United Nations rules and get away with it.

Western nations fear that North Korea plans a ballistic missile test rather than a satellite launch, but the administration’s special envoy to the Six-Party Talks, Stephen Bosworth, said it didn’t matter if the North Koreans were trying to put a satellite in space or testing a ballistic missile that could threaten Japan or the United States.