The USA and South Korea have agreed to expedite the deployment of the North American missile defense system, ‘Terminal High Altitude Area Defense’ (THAAD), said South Korea’s acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn.
‘We agree to strengthen our alliance further, to meet the threat that North Korea poses. We will do this by quickly deploying THAAD’, said Hwang Kyo-ahn during a joint press conference with the USA’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, on Monday.
THAAD is referred to as an anti-missile system, and its deployment in South-Eastern Asia has triggered strong protests from China, who have announced countermeasures.
‘China will implement the measures necessary to defend our own security interests. The USA and South Korea must take responsibility for all the consequences that follow from this’, said a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry last month. Russia has also warned the United States of America against its THAAD deployment plans.
(THAAD) was first used during the Iraq war in the early 1990s and is already deployed in Hawaii.
Last year, the United States agreed with South Korea on a THAAD placement there as well, and work to get the system operational will now be accelerated, according to Hwang Kyo-ahn.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
