President Yoon Suk-yeol / Yonhap

The office of President Yoon Suk-yeol strongly condemned North Korea's recent ballistic missile launches as a grave provocation Wednesday as Yoon ordered measures to ensure the U.S.' "extended deterrence" commitment to South Korea.

The presidential office released the statement shortly after Yoon presided over a National Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea's launch of three ballistic missiles, including a presumed intercontinental ballistic missile, earlier in the day.

"The participants defined North Korea's missile launches as a grave provocation that violates U.N. Security Council resolutions, raises tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia and threatens international peace, and strongly condemns this," it said in the statement.

"President Yoon ordered the thorough implementation of international sanctions against North Korea, including U.N, Security Council resolutions, based on coordination between South Korea and the United States, and in close cooperation with relevant nations and the international community," it added.

North Korea's launches came only days after Yoon and U.S. President Joe Biden held a summit in Seoul last weekend and less than a day after Biden left Japan to return to Washington at the end of his first visit to Asia as president.

During the NSC meeting, the participants took note of the timing, saying the missiles were fired after Saturday's summit and before Biden arrived in the U.S.

Both Seoul and Washington had said North Korea could launch an ICBM or test a nuclear weapon during or around the U.S. president's visit to the region.

Against that backdrop, Biden reaffirmed the U.S.' extended deterrence commitment to South Korea in his meeting with Yoon, "using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities."