Seoul, South Korea ? The U.S. and its allies sought to punish North Korea’s defiant launch of a rocket that apparently fizzled into the Pacific, holding an emergency U.N. meeting to respond to an act that some believe was a long-range missile test.

President Barack Obama, faced with his first global security crisis, called for an international response and condemned North Korea for threatening the peace and stability of nations “near and far.” Minutes after liftoff, Japan requested the emergency Security Council session in New York.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told a nationwide radio broadcast today that “North Korea’s reckless act of threatening regional and global security cannot have any justification.” South Korea’s National Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the rocket launch as a “serious provocation.”

U.S. and South Korean officials claim the entire rocket, including whatever payload it carried, ended up in the ocean after Sunday’s launch, but many world leaders fear the launch indicates the capacity to fire a long-range missile. Pyongyang claims it launched a communications satellite into orbit that is now transmitting data and patriotic songs.

“North Korea broke the rules, once again, by testing a rocket that could be used for long-range missiles,” Obama said in Prague. “It creates instability in their region, around the world. This provocation underscores the need for action, not just this afternoon in the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons.”

Council members met for three hours Sunday, seeking a unified response, but the meeting ended with a deadlock, breaking up for the night without issuing even a customary preliminary statement of condemnation.

Diplomats privy to the closed-door talks say China, Russia, Libya and Vietnam were concerned about further alienating and destabilizing North Korea.

“We’re now in a very sensitive moment,” Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui said after the talks. “Our position is that all countries concerned should show restraint and refrain from taking actions that might lead to increased tensions.”

The U.S. Britain, France and Japan drafted a proposal for a resolution that could be adopted by the end of the week. It aims to toughen existing economic sanctions.

Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller said the council would reconvene today.

In Tokyo, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said Japan was pushing hard for a resolution and lobbying “respective nations” by telephone.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told lawmakers in Seoul that “all countries acknowledge” the launch violates Security Council Resolution 1718, passed after North Korea’s 2006 nuclear test. “I think discussions will move forward around that.”

Using a possible loophole in U.N. sanctions that bar the North from ballistic missile activity, Pyongyang claimed it was exercising its right to peaceful space development.