President Moon Jae-in has strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile launch, saying his government will never tolerate North Korean provocations.
 
The president made the remark on Wednesday during an emergency meeting of the National Security Council(NSC) held at around 6 a.m., which lasted for about an hour. 
 
According to the top office, the president said that North Korea must immediately give up its reckless pursuit which will lead to its isolation and demise, and come to the dialogue table.

The president said that if North Korea completes its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, things could worsen and get into uncontrollable confusion. 

He stressed the need to prevent the North from misjudging the situation and threatening South Korea with its nuclear weapons or the U.S. from considering a preemptive strike against the North.

Moon also said that peace on the Korean Peninsula is impossible unless the North stops its military provocations, adding South Korea, the U.S. and the international community have to maintain strong sanctions and pressure until the North abandons its nuclear and missile programs.

President Moon vowed to come up with firmer and more effective measures to change Pyongyang's behavior, ordering his security aides to finalize a revision of missile guidelines at the earliest possible date.

He also ordered the South Korean military to keep vigilance to deter and quickly respond to any provocation by the North based on the ironclad Korea-U.S. combined defense readiness.

Moon instructed attendees to review the possible impact of the missile launch on the successful hosting of the PyeongChang Olympics, slated for February next year, and to make the utmost effort to manage the situation stably. 

The NSC session was held about three hours after the North fired a long-range ballistic missile at around 3:17 a.m.

NSC chief Chung Eui-yong reported the launch to the president two minutes after and the president convened a full session of the NSC as soon as receiving a second report from Chung at 3:24 a.m.

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