US and South Korea to meet over North’s missile buildup
SEOUL, South Korea — The United States agreed to start negotiations to allow South Korea to build more powerful ballistic missiles to counter North Korea’s rapidly-advancing missile technologies, the office of the South’s president said Saturday.
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea called for arms buildup talks with Washington hours after the North launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that experts said had a long enough range to reach the West Coast of the United States and potentially Chicago and New York. The White House quickly accepted the proposal, Moon’s office said.
Moon’s top national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, called his White House counterpart, Gen. H.R. McMaster, early Saturday Seoul time to propose that the allies immediately start negotiations to allow South Korea to build up its missile capabilities. McMaster agreed to the proposal, which would likely involve increasing the payload on South Korea’s ballistic missiles, officials said.
Under the terms of a bilateral treaty, South Korea needs approval from the U.S. to build such stronger missiles.
Earlier on Saturday, Moon ordered his government to cooperate with the United States to install an advanced U.S. missile defense battery known as THAAD, whose deployment in South Korea had been suspended since he took office in May.
Moon’s actions signaled that the growing missile threat from North Korea was spurring an arms buildup in Northeast Asia. Japan earlier said that it was considering buying ballistic missile defense systems from the United States.
But China has adamantly opposed installing THAAD in South Korea, arguing that doing so would only heighten tensions with North Korea and could undermine China’s own nuclear deterrent by giving the U.S. another means to monitor its missiles.
Missile analysts remain uncertain and even doubtful that North Korea has cleared all the technical hurdles to building a reliable nucleartipped ICBM. But the test on Friday left little doubt that the country was getting closer to its goal of arming itself with long-range missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads to the U.S.
Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, said, “U.S. policy for 21 years has been to prevent this day from coming, and now it has,” referring to the North’s ICBM test on Friday.