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ASEAN's grave concern over North Korea missile launches
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Growing tension: South Korean army soldiers install a tent in Yeoncheon, South Korea, near the border of North Korea, on March 6. North Korea fired four banned ballistic missiles on Monday that flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), with three of them landing in Japan's exclusive economic zone, South Korean and Japanese officials said, in an apparent reaction to military drills by Washington and Seoul that Pyongyang insists are an invasion rehearsal. (AP/Ahn Young-joon)
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oreign ministers of ASEAN member countries have condemned the latest North Korean missile launches, calling for peace and security in the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea fired the four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan's northwest coast on Monday, for the second incident this year that has angered South Korea and Japan.
ASEAN foreign ministers have "grave concern" over the the launches they deemed were made “in clear violation of the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council”.
“ASEAN strongly urges North Korea to comply with UN Security Council’s resolutions in the interest of maintaining peace and security in the region,” the ASEAN foreign ministers said in a statement on Wednesday.
ASEAN’s statement followed a similar condemnation by the UN’s most powerful body, which deemed the North Korean move as "a grave violation" of its resolutions, deploring it as posing a risk to a regional arms race.
Although the council already has imposed six rounds of increasingly tougher sanctions on North Korea, Pyongyang remains defiant, arguing that the launches were in response to the annual United States-South Korea military exercises.
In the statement, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers also reaffirmed their full support for the denuclearization of the peninsula in a peaceful manner.
