(VOVworld) - Foreign ministers attending the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) called on North Korea on Thursday to give up its nuclear weapons program "in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner." It was the first time that the CICA foreign ministers' meeting has adopted such a declaration, in which they condemned North Korea's January nuclear test and February long-range rocket launch. They reaffirmed stronger international cooperation so that North Korea abandons its nuclear program.

A man watches a television news channel in Seoul showing footage of a North Korean missile launch on April 24, 2016. (Photo: AFP)

On the same day, the South Korean army reported that the North had launched a mid range missile near the eastern port city of Wonsan. The missile exploded seconds later and the launch was considered a failure.