Moon to reassure US over THAAD
Print Edition
SOUTH Korean President Moon Jae-in’s top security aide left for Washington yesterday as the new leader tries to reassure his country’s main ally he will not scrap a deal to host a missile defense system that has angered China.
Moon has ordered an investigation into why his office was not told about the deployment of four more launchers for the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.
They are being deployed amid what the US and South Korea called a growing threat of missile launches by North Korea.
Moon had pledged during his election campaign that he would review the decision to deploy THAAD and said it was “very shocking” his office had not been told of the latest deployment while preparing for a summit with US President Donald Trump in Washington this month.
The decision to deploy the system in South Korea was made by Moon’s predecessor Park Geun-hye, who was impeached and thrown out of office in a corruption scandal that engulfed South Korea’s business and political elite.
“My order for a probe on THAAD is purely a domestic measure and I want to be clear that it is not about trying to change the existing decision or sending a message to the United States,” Moon told visiting US Senator Dick Durbin on Wednesday.
The remarks were the first clear indication that Moon does not intend to stop the deployment, which has drawn angry protests from China, South Korea’s biggest trading partner.
China says the system will do little to deter the missile threat from North Korea, while allowing the US military to use the system’s radar to look deep into its territory, undermining its security. In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reiterated a call for an end to the THAAD deployment.
China has issued “representations” to South Korea expressing serious concerns about Moon not having been informed about the deployment of four more launchers, Hua told a daily news briefing.
Moon’s national security adviser Chung Eui-yong denied the controversy over the deployment would have a negative impact on the summit between Moon and Trump.
“We’ve sufficiently explained that this has nothing to do with our alliance,” Chung told reporters before his departure.
Chung said he would meet Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster and finalize the agenda for the summit.
On Wednesday, the presidential Blue House said South Korea’s defense ministry had intentionally omitted details about the THAAD battery in a report to Chung last week.
Moon took office on May 10 without a transition period because a snap presidential election was held two months after Park was ousted.
He inherited her defense minister, along with the rest of the Cabinet, and has yet to name his own.
The THAAD battery was initially deployed in March in the southeastern region of Seongju with just two of its maximum load of six launchers.
North Korea has conducted three ballistic missile tests since Moon took office, maintaining its accelerated pace of missile and nuclear-related activities since the beginning of last year in defiance of UN sanctions and US pressure.
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