By Rodrigo Campos

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States on Tuesday called for action to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions on North Korea prohibiting ballistic missile-related activities, a day after Pyongyang’s latest missile launches.

North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Monday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries said, as the leaders of the Group of 20 major economies held a summit in China, the North’s main diplomatic ally.

The missiles likely landed in the sea 200 to 250 km (120 to 160 miles) west of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern-most main island, sources at Japan’s defense ministry said Monday.

“The Security Council must remain unequivocal and united in the condemnation of these tests and we must take action to enforce the words we put on paper, to enforce our resolutions,” U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said after a Security Council meeting.

Power, who spoke along with her Japanese and South Korean counterparts, refrained from elaborating on what further action the Security Council could take.

Monday’s missile launches were the latest in a series by North Korea this year in violation of Security Council resolutions that were supported by China banning ballistic missile-related activities by Pyongyang.

A fire drill of ballistic rockets by Hwasong artillery units of the KPA Strategic Force is pictured in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 6, 2016. KCNA/via Reuters

North Korea rejects the ban as infringing its sovereign right to pursue a space program and self defense.

Asked whether China agreed more significant measures needed to be taken, permanent UK representative to the U.N., Matthew Rycroft, said: “We’re talking to all of our council colleagues.”

Hahn Choong Hee, South Korea’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N., said Pyongyang was spending “a considerable amount” of its resources in developing weapons of mass destruction while sacrificing the living conditions of North Koreans.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006. The 15-member Security Council toughened the sanctions in March in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket in February.

Earlier, France called the tests “extremely concerning” and “a clear and unacceptable new violation of the Security Council resolutions.”

“We very much favor a quick and firm reaction by the Security Council to this new provocation,” said Francois Delattre, French permanent representative to the U.N.

(Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Cynthia Osterman)