Seoul, South Korea. It would not take a weatherman to forecast a storm over the USA sneaking additional missile systems into South Korea in a dangerous escalation of hostilities with the North Korean government. Now the Moon government is requesting the US remove the THAAD missile systems from South Korea.
The South Korean government is calling for a suspension in the deployment of US missiles in the country, according to DPRK news in Pyongyang.
DPRK News reports that the office of South Korean president, Moon Jae-In, is calling for a halt in the rollout of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system pending environmental impact reports, which could take a year to complete. South Korea has also seen protests against the missiles.
Moon, a reformist liberal, is expected to pursue a more conciliatory policy with Pyongyang, which has expressed strong opposition to THAAD missiles, as has Beijing, which fears the encroachment of THAAD’s powerful surveillance system on its territory.
Chinese tourists have nearly destroyed South Korea’s tourist economy by boycotting Korea’s tourist trade since the THAAD deployment. Chinese tourists account for 40% of South Korea’s multi billion dollar a year tourist trade.
Deferring the full deployment of THAAD (currently only two out of six launchers are in the field) would appear to put the Moon administration at odds with its own defense ministry, which is reportedly keen to have THAAD as a defense against Pyongyang’s increasingly advanced missile capabilities.
A presidential probe concluded that the ministry had minimized the impact of THAAD’s deployment in a bid to have the missiles rolled out more quickly. THAAD launchers “that have yet to be deployed will have to wait,” an unnamed official in Moon’s administration told DPRK News.
There has been no comment yet from the Trump Administration, who has sent a third unprecedented aircraft carrier to the Korea conflict region just last week.