The US called the tests "provocative" and Japan has announced sanctions.

The UN Security Council is due to hold an emergency meeting later on Wednesday to discuss the developments.



The closed UN session was requested by Japan, which said it was co-ordinating its response to the missile tests with the US and other countries.

Australia said it expected North Korea to make further test firings.

Strong condemnation

Pyongyang remained defiant. A foreign ministry official said such launches were a matter of national sovereignty, Japanese media reported.

In the US, White House spokesman Tony Snow said the launches "demonstrate North Korea's intent to intimidate other states" and Washington would take necessary steps to protect itself and its allies.



President George W Bush is sending Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill out to the region.

Japan - one of North Korea's harshest critics, and in easy reach of a long-range missile - announced bans on the entry of North Korean officials, chartered flights and a ferry.

In South Korea - which has been anxious to promote reconciliation with its unpredictable northern neighbour - the government called an emergency cabinet meeting soon after the tests took place.

South Korea has consistently opposed the imposition of sanctions, but in recent days it warned of cutting food aid to the North should the missile tests go ahead.

Analysts said the firing - North Korea's first test of a long-range missile since a self-imposed moratorium in 1999 - would also seriously damage prospects for stalled international talks on the North's nuclear programme.

Heightened alert

According to US officials, the North fired at least six missiles over a four-hour period, beginning at 0332 Japan Time (1832 GMT).

South Korea has confirmed that five of the missiles were medium-range versions of the old Soviet Scud missile. The sixth was the long-range Taepodong-2, fired from the Musudan-ri missile base.

The Taepodong-2 crashed 42 seconds after it was launched, according to US sources.

The US and North Korea's neighbours have been on heightened alert in recent weeks amid suspicions that Pyongyang was preparing to launch the Taepodong-2, which has a range of up to 6,000 km (3,730 miles), putting parts of the US within striking distance.

The BBC's Charles Scanlon in Seoul says the North has been feeling under pressure and ignored in recent months, with the US refusing to negotiate on its demands over its nuclear plans.

Long-running talks over North Korea's nuclear capabilities have stalled, with six-party negotiations on the issue being repeatedly postponed as neither Washington nor Pyongyang are prepared to give ground.

North Korea may see this action as a way to get attention and break the diplomatic log jam, our correspondent adds.

The tests came as the US celebrated its Independence Day holiday and launched the space shuttle from Florida.

The last time North Korea tested a long-range missile was in 1998, when it launched a Taepodong-1 over northern Japan.

Iran's Fars news agency reported that Larijani had canceled his trip to Belgium "for some reasons" and that the meeting could be rescheduled in coming days.

The office of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, whose had been due to meet Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, could not immediately confirm when the meeting, set by Western powers as a deadline for Iran's response, would take place.

Solana spoke by telephone with Larijani on Wednesday, an EU official said.

Iran had said it needs more time to reply to the incentives offer, adding to longstanding Western suspicions that it has been playing for time in the stand-off.

But an analyst in Tehran said a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on the same day by the leader of the outlawed National Council of Resistance of Iran, regarded by the government as a terrorist group, appeared to be the reason.

Maryam Rajavi, who is based in France and whose organization is the political wing of the outlawed People's Mujahideen armed group, was invited to the legislature by a cross-party group of EU lawmakers who call themselves "Friends of a Free Iran."

"One might think that this didn't please the Iranians, but it could also be a welcome pretext for the Iranians," the analyst said, who asked not to be identified.

Diplomats said divisions in the U.N. Security Council over what action to take on Iran meant there had been little chance of responding either at the Brussels meeting or before a July 15 summit of G8 leading industrialized nations in Russia.

The United States has accused Iran of having a secret program to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear program is solely for power generation.

Iran says it sees ambiguities in the June 6 offer by Germany and the five permanent, veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.

The major powers offered a state-of-the-art nuclear reactor with a guaranteed fuel supply, economic benefits and support for the idea of a regional security framework if Iran halted uranium enrichment.

Diplomats believe that as Russia and China were unlikely to back any U.N. sanctions against Iran at this stage, the West was in no position to set deadlines.