WASHINGTON - The United States called for a UN Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss North Korea’s attempted satellite launch this week, said the spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations.

The launch on Wednesday was an attempt by North Korea to put its first spy satellite into space, but it ended in failure, with the booster and payload plunging into the sea.

Washington condemned the launch, saying it used ballistic missile technology in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and risked destabilising the security situation in the region and beyond.

Mr Nate Evans, the spokesman for the US mission to the UN, said the US had called for an open meeting on the launch, which means the proceedings were to be streamed live.

Another UN diplomat said the call was made jointly with Albania, Ecuador, France, Japan, Malta and Britain.

Following the failed launch, Ms Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said her country would soon put a military spy satellite into orbit and vowed that Pyongyang would increase its military surveillance capabilities.

Speaking in Tokyo on Thursday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said: “North Korea’s dangerous and destabilising nuclear and missile programmes threaten peace and stability in the region.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said any launch by Pyongyang using ballistic missile technology breaches Security Council resolutions, according to a spokesman.

In her statement, Ms Kim said the criticisms of the launch were “self-contradiction” as the US and other countries have already launched “thousands of satellites”. REUTERS