The United Nations slapped sanctions Friday on three North Korean firms accused of backing missile development, in the first concrete action against Pyongyang over its April 5 rocket launch.

A committee agreed on the sanctions after the Security Council condemned North Korea for its launch — a statement that had so incensed the communist state that it stormed out of a six-nation denuclearization agreement.

Turkish Ambassador Baki Ilkin, who heads the committee, told reporters the three companies added to the blacklist were the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, Korea Ryonbong General Corporation and Tanchon Commercial Bank.

Korea Mining is considered a "primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons," according to a Security Council document obtained by AFP.

Korea Ryonbong is a "defense conglomerate specializing in acquisition for DPRK defense industries and support to that country's military-related sales," it said, using the North's official name of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Tanchon Commercial Bank is North Korea's main financial entity handling sales of conventional arms, ballistic missiles and related goods, it said.

North Korea said its April 5 launch put into orbit a satellite that is broadcasting patriotic songs from the communist dynasty.

But no other nation has confirmed a satellite in orbit. The United States and its allies say that North Korea fired a rocket over Japan as part of its program to develop long-range ballistic missiles that could conceivably hit the United States in the future.

Backed by the United States and its European allies, Japan had pressed the United Nations to impose a resolution, which is legally binding.

But Japan and the United States instead accepted a Security Council statement, which carries less weight, in order to bring on board veto-wielding China and Russia which urged restraint.

That statement activated the sanctions committee, which was approved in 2006 under a UN Security Council resolution forbidding North Korea from long-range ballistic missile tests.

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