The deployment of the U.S. missile defense system THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) in South Korea was decided after a series of missile launches that show, according to analysts, Pyongyang progress in its efforts to develop an intercontinental missile (ICBM) capable of carrying a nuclear attack on the American continent.
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South Korea’s president defended her plan to deploy an advanced USA missile defense system on the peninsula, saying it was “inevitable” and that calls to scrap it could play into the North’s hands.
The decision has sparked angry protests by residents in Seongju, fearing possible hazards to health and the environment from the radar-based system.
The drill rehearsed “making preemptive strikes at ports and airfields in the operational theater in South Korea, where the USA imperialists nuclear war hardware is to be hurled”, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday.
The launch of the two Scud missiles and one intermediate-range Rodong was condemned by the United States, Japan and South Korea, who vowed a collective diplomatic response.
According to the South Korean military, the two Scuds flew between 500 and 600km into the Sea of Japan, while the Rodong was sacked about an hour later.
The decision has also been controversial in South Korea, particularly in the rural area of Seongju, about 130 miles southeast of Seoul, which has been chosen as the site for the battery.
“Let’s block the deployment of THAAD, a threat to peace on the Korean peninsula!” chanted some 2,000 protestors, waving flags and banners that read “No THAAD” as they sat outside Seoul station on Thursday. Residents pelted the South Korean prime minister with eggs when he visited last week to try to alleviate their concerns that they would become a target for North Korea.
Park said North Korea could stage more provocations, including possibly another nuclear test or a cyberattack, at any time.
The two Koreas remain technically at war under a truce that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.
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“The government has made the decision to deploy THAAD as it judged that the deployment was the best way to protect the nation and the people from North Korea’s threats”, she was quoted as saying.
