Seoul on Friday brushed aside US President Donald Trump’s suggestion it should pay for a $1 billion missile defense system the two allies are installing in South Korea to guard against what they call threats from the North.
The first parts of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system have already been delivered to a former golf course in the South — infuriating China — at a time of heightened tensions in Korean peninsula.
Top US officials have said THAAD will be operational “within days”.
“I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. It’s a billion-dollar system,” Trump was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. “It’s phenomenal, shoots missiles right out of the sky.”
The two countries have been in a security alliance since the 1950-53 Korean war, and more than 28,000 US troops are stationed in the South.
Seoul retorted that under the Status of Forces Agreement that governs the US military presence in the country, the South would provide the THAAD site and infrastructure while the US would pay to deploy and operate it.
“There is no change to this basic position,” South Korea’s defense ministry said in a statement.
Source: AFP
