A golf course owned by Lotte Group, Mount Yeomsok and Mount Kkachi have emerged as possible candidates to replace the original site picked by the government.
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South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-goo will visit Seongju County later today to talk with residents about the deployment of the controversial THAAD anti-missile system.
Committee members held a vote earlier in the day with overwhelming numbers saying they favor a different site for the THAAD battery.
The decision was reached after obtaining 23 votes in support, one opposition vote, and nine abstentions.
The people protesting the Thaad deployment in Seongju had recently submitted a formal plea to Seoul, urging the government to review other possible locations.
Weeks into its protest of the decision by Seoul and Washington to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system in Seongju, the committee reached the decision after President Park Geun-hye suggested earlier this month that she is willing to consider an alternate site.
In July, Seoul and Washington agreed to place a THAAD battery in Seongju, about 296 kilometers southeast of Seoul, by the end of next year in a bid to counter North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats.
The announcement came as residents living near a state-chosen site for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense asked Seoul to review different sites within their county to deploy the defensive system, instead of the original site, which is now used as a South Korean air defense base.
On Friday, the committee held a meeting where participants said a new site can be examined if the defense ministry scraps its original plan for Seongsan-ri which is relatively close to Seongju town.
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“The Gimcheon city government and council hereby express their regret at media reports that suggest the golf course adjacent to the city as a strong alternate site for Thaad”, the city government and council said in a statement last week. Many residents have objected the decision to deploy the THAAD system in their county.
