The top diplomats of South Korea, the United States and Japan have strongly condemned North Korea's latest firing of what it claims is an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), calling for effective enforcement of sanctions against the North.

Minister Park Jin and his American and Japanese counterparts Antony Blinken and Yoshimasa Hayashi held a trilateral meeting on Saturday afternoon at a hotel in Germany on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Park said that North Korea fired a long-range ballistic missile in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, and escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, in the region and beyond.

Park said that the three sides gathered to demonstrate their unity and unwavering resolve in the face of the North's escalating threat.

He warned that North Korea will face more severe sanctions by the international community, urging Pyongyang to immediately cease all provocations and return to denuclearization talks.

Blinken also condemned the North's latest ballistic missile launch as a violation of multiple Security Council resolutions, calling for effective enforcement of sanctions. He said that countries that have influence with the regime should use it to move it from the course that it's been on for the last couple of years.

Hayashi said that the ICBM missile launched by North Korea landed within Japan's exclusive economic zone and the range could cover the entire continent of the United States, which is an unacceptable act.

According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the North fired an alleged long-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea at 5:22 p.m. on Saturday from the Sunan district of Pyongyang.

North Korean media reported on Sunday that the North fired a Hwasong-15 ICBM the previous day in a sudden launching drill.