THAAD & Diplomacy

[Anchor Lead]

President Moon Jae-in said that only one, not two, launchers for the U.S. missile defense system THAAD would be installed on the Korean Peninsula this year. The president also said he would ask his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to stop taking retaliatory measures over the deployment of the battery, and expressed hopes for the upcoming summit meeting with the U.S. president.

[Pkg]

In a meeting with Reuters, President Moon Jae-in said only one launcher of the U.S. missile defense system was supposed to be installed in Korea this year under a bilateral agreement with the U.S. He pointed out that the installation was carried out hastily after former President Park Geun-hye's impeachment, and an environmental impact assessment, an essential step in the deployment, was mostly ignored. While urging Beijing to exert more effort to stop Pyongyang's nuclear development, President Moon said he would like to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the G20 Summit slated for next month to ask him to halt retaliatory measures against the THAAD deployment. President Moon also said that Pyongyang could soon develop nuclear missile technologies that can strike the U.S. mainland, and stressed that additional tough sanctions must be imposed should Pyongyang conduct a sixth nuclear test or fire its intercontinental ballistic missiles. President Moon expressed high expectations for the upcoming summit with the U.S. leader next week. President Moon pledged to do his best at the G20 Summit next month to convince world leaders to tackle North Korea's nuclear development as a major issue on the summit agenda.