The statement said that Seoul and Washington have been pushing to get THAAD quickly working to cope with North Korea's advancing nuclear and missile threats.
South Korea's defence ministry confirmed some elements of the THAAD system had arrived at a site in the south of the country, on a plot of land formally used as a golf course. In this April 23, 2017 photo released by the U.S. Navy, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson transits the Philippine Sea while conducting a bilateral exercise with th.
Admiral Harry Harris, who heads the Pacific Command, welcomed recent efforts by Beijing to try to defuse soaring tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, and suggested a non-military solution remained the preferred outcome.
The U.S. military started moving parts of an anti-missile defense system to a deployment site in South Korea on Wednesday, triggering protests from villagers and criticism from China.
Kim Jong Un's regime marked the 85th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's army Tuesday with its typical bluster.
While ground-based missile interceptors at US bases in Alaska and California provide enough coverage to defend the USA mainland from a potential North Korean missile strike, Harris believes they might not be enough to fully defend Hawaii in the future. The USS Carl Vinson aircraft supercarrier also is headed toward the peninsula for an exercise with South Korea.
Admiral Harry Harris was speaking in a prepared testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on 26 April about the current tensions between the USA and North Korea. The US 7th Fleet said two American destroyers were conducting simultaneous maritime exercises with naval ships from South Korea and Japan.
"In confronting the North Korean threat, it is critical that the USA be guided by a strong sense of resolve both publicly and privately in order to bring Kim Jong Un to his senses, not his knees", Harris said. "One of these days soon, he will succeed".
Still, North Korea remains defiant despite mounting pressure from the Trump administration and, increasingly, China, to stop its missile program. The briefing team was to meet later with House members in the Capitol. A rapid tempo of North Korean weapons testing in the past year has pushed Kim Jong Un's authoritarian nation closer to developing a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the U.S. mainland. Instead, they've said the administration's strategy focuses on increasing pressure on North Korea with the help of its main trading partner, China.
US officials have warned any near-term conflict with North Korea could have a devastating effect on ally South Korea, a point Pyongyang underscored by a big live-fire exercise on Tuesday to mark the foundation of its military. The officials weren't authorized to speak publicly about plans for the closed-door briefings and requested anonymity.
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"North Korea openly states that its ballistic missiles are meant to deliver nuclear weapons to strike cities in the United States, the Republic of Korea, and Japan".
A spokesman for Moon Jae-in said the decision "ignored public opinion and due process" and demanded the deployment be suspended until the next administration was in place and had made its policy decision.
A targeted preemptory attack to take out North Korea's growing nuclear weapons program could spark a wider war on the Korean peninsula, lawmakers and experts on North Korea have warned.
Washington and Pyongyang have flexed their muscles in recent days.
The drill saw more than 300 large-caliber self-propelled guns firing simultaneously and torpedo attacks by submarines, state-run KCNA said, demonstrating North Korea's determination to pour a "merciless rain of fire on the reckless imperialist U.S. and its dirty followers". At the same time, the USS Michigan, a nuclear-powered submarine armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, arrived in South Korea. China's defense ministry has also repeatedly criticized THAAD's deployment and said the military will take unspecified actions in response.
But China fears THAAD will weaken its own ballistic capabilities and says it upsets the regional security balance.
In Berlin, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said through an interpreter that all sides had obligations and "we don't want to see any cherry picking".
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters THAAD "severely undermines China's strategic security interests".
Last year, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests. It also launched a long-range rocket previous year that delivered a satellite into orbit, which Washington, Seoul and others saw as a banned test of missile technology.
Since then, other THAAD elements had been secretly transported to the USA bases in South Korea's port city of Busan, the Osan city near Seoul and the US logistics base Camp Carroll near Seongju, according to Newsis news agency.
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