South Korea, the United States, Japan and other countries condemned North Korea’s recent launch of what it claims was a space rocket last Thursday.

Park Eun-jin, director of the South Korean foreign ministry’s disarmament and non-proliferation division, issued the condemnation on Monday during a meeting of the UN open-ended working group(OEWG) on outer space security in Geneva, Switzerland.

Park said that the meeting was held to ensure safe and sustainable peace in space, but it was very deplorable that North Korea has chosen the opposite path.

Reiterating that North Korea's launch of a so-called “military reconnaissance satellite” using ballistic missile technology is illegal, she strongly condemned the North’s unlawful activity as an unpeaceful use of outer space.

Eric Desautels, a senior coordinator at the U.S. State Department, said that the North’s satellite launch undermines the international community's non-proliferation efforts and moves away from the common goal of disarmament.

Representatives of Japan, Germany and New Zealand also condemned the launch, pointing out that it violated UN Security Council resolutions.

Han Tae-song, North Korea’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, rejected the condemnation, saying that the resolutions are illegal documents that run counter to the UN Charter, and the North will not be bound by resolutions from the U.S. and its followers.