North Korea's weekend rocket launch repeated earlier success rather than breaking new ground, using a nearly identical design from a 2012 launch, experts said, adding the reclusive country probably remained years from building a long-range nuclear missile.
The rocket was based on engines taken from its massive stockpile of midrange missiles based on Soviet-era technology and electrical parts too rudimentary to be targeted by a global missile control regime, the experts said.
South Korea and the United States say Sunday's launch was a long-range missile test that violated U.N. Security Council resolutions barring the North from using ballistic missile technology. It followed North Korea's Jan. 6 test of a nuclear device, also in breach of Security Council resolutions.