U. S. Antimissile System Goes Live in South Korea -<br />By CHOE SANG-HUNMAY 2, 2017<br />SEOUL, South Korea — An American missile-defense system deployed to counter growing threats<br />from North Korea has gone into operation in South Korea, officials said on Tuesday.<br />His statement was echoed by the South Korean Defense Ministry, whose representative, Moon Sang-gyun, said<br />the battery “has acquired an initial capability to deal with North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat.”<br />The announcement came ahead of a presidential election next week in South Korea<br />that has been troubled by tension over the North’s nuclear weapons program and confusion about President Trump’s approach toward the Korean Peninsula.<br />On Tuesday, South Korea’s main opposition party, the Democrats, called the government’s<br />decision to accept the Thaad deployment “a total failure of diplomacy.”<br />The American antimissile system — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, known as Thaad — in South Korea has been deemed operational.<br />The system “is operational and has the ability to intercept North Korean missiles”<br />and defend South Korea, said Col. Robert Manning III, a spokesman with the United States military in Seoul, the South Korean capital.
