Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
'Pressing Seoul over THAAD deployment is irresponsible'
By Jun Ji-hye
Burwell Bell
By Jun Ji-hye
The former commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) Burwell Bell said Tuesday that the United States should not publicly press South Korea to accept Washington’s envisioned plan to deploy its latest interception system, part of its missile defense (MD) program, on the Korean Peninsula.
The retired U.S. Army four-star general stressed that pressing Seoul diplomatically and publicly is “simply irresponsible.”
He emphasized that he “definitely” agrees that the United States should deploy a Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) missile battery to counter the growing threat of nuclear and ballistic missiles from North Korea. However, he added, “I equally definitely disapprove of the American administration ― our current administration ― talking about and pressing for this publicly as we’ve seen lately in the news media. Our diplomatic behavior, in my view, has been unconscionable.”
Bell, who served as USFK commander from 2006-2008, made the comments during a Heritage Foundation forum held in Washington.
“We must recognize that this is a complex issue for the South Korean public. As such, the South Korean government must quietly sell diplomatically the deployment of THAAD and all the missile defense requirements within their own government first and then to the Korean people,” he said.
The THAAD system, which has a range of 150 kilometers, is regarded as an indispensable element of the MD system, along with the SM-3, which can intercept missiles at an altitude of 400-500 kilometers.
Whether the U.S. will deploy the THAAD battery on its base stationed in South Korea has been a controversial and sensitive issue here because such a deployment is widely regarded as an attempt by Washington to get the Asian ally to join its MD system, and to contain the influence of China and Russia.
Washington says that THAAD would target North Korean ballistic missiles, but China and Russia claim that they are the real targets of any such U.S. system on the Korean Peninsula.
Bell said that the U.S. should also make efforts to persuade China about accepting the system.
“What we ought to be doing is selling this deployment to the Chinese and reminding them clearly that if they would only intervene with the North to reduce the North’s offensive missile capability and terminate their nuclear weapons program, there would be no pressing need for THAAD,” he said.
Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye