South Korea and the U.S. will sign an agreement to officially launch talks to station a U.S. advanced missile defense system here this week, the Ministry of National Defense said, postponing its original plan to reach a deal on Tuesday.

The ministry on Monday had said it would sign an agreement with the U.S. military on a joint working group for negotiations on deploying Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system on 11 a.m. Tuesday. The allies have mulled over having the ballistic missile defense system here in light of growing inter-Korean tension from North Korea’s recent nuclear testing and long-range rocket launch.

But ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun abruptly announced merely an hour before the slated time that Seoul and Washington had mutually agreed to delay the signing by “one or two days.”

“The terms of reference (on the joint working group) are in its final stages, but there were some last-minute adjustments,” he said, without elaborating. 

The two-day delay coincides with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to the U.S. for talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, sparking speculation that Wang’s trip to Washington is related to the sudden last-minute change of plans. China has publicly opposed stationing THAAD in the Korean Peninsula, citing security concerns.

A military official, on condition of anonymity, said that the delay was upon Washington’s request. But Moon denied allegations that postponing talks for THAAD had anything to do with Wang’s visit to Washington or the U.N. Security Council’s upcoming resolution on North Korea, which the Foreign Affairs Ministry expects to be issued by the end of this month.

Some experts, such as international politics professor Kim Yeol-su of Sungshin Women’s University, have raised the possibility that the allies are refraining from rushing talks in a bid to avoid putting too much pressure on China.


By Yoon Min-sik
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)