Bulgaria has joined the long list of countries that have expressed concern over North Korea's missile launch on Wednesday.

"Bulgaria expresses its strong concern at the fact that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea openly ignored the calls by the international community and carried out the launching of a long-range rocket on December 12 2012," Bulgarian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vesela Cherneva has said in a statement.

"This act demonstrates clear disregard for the international obligations of the DPRK, in particular United Nations Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874 and seriously undermines the efforts to establish lasting peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," the statement goes.

"We strongly urge the DPRK to refrain from further actions that could lead to even greater escalation of tensions in the region and isolation of the country, and urge it to keep strictly to its international obligations resulting from the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the agreement on safeguards with the International Atomic Energy Agency."

North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Wednesday, defying international warnings.

The launch was carried out from the launch site in the country's northwest.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, said it had detected the launching and tracked the missile — a Galaxy-3 rocket, called the Unha-3 by the North — as its first stage appeared to fall into the Yellow Sea and the second stage into the Philippine Sea. NORAD added that the rocket appeared to deploy "an object" which achieved orbit.

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