South Korea Thaad deployment begins following North Korean missile launch

China warned of a “head-on collision” Wednesday unless North Korea stops launching banned missiles and the United States and South Korea halt their joint military exercises.

Last year, North Korea conducted two nuclear weapons tests and fired 24 ballistic missiles.

“As a first step”, Wang said, this could be achieved by North Korea suspending its banned nuclear and missile program, which has accelerated in recent years as Kim Jong Un seeks to develop a nuclear-armed ballistic missile capable of hitting the USA mainland.

Foreign ministers of ASEAN member countries have condemned the latest North Korean missile launches, calling for peace and security in the Korean Peninsula.

“By firing four missiles at once this time, the military confrontation between Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington escalates a notch”, the paper said.

China’s suggestion came after North Korea launched four ballistic missiles, breaking global sanctions.

“It is an unbelievable, irresponsible arrogance that we are seeing coming out of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un at this time”, Nikki Haley told reporters alongside the United Nations ambassadors from Japan and South Korea.

Toner brushed off Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s suggestion that the US suspend military drills with South Korea as a way to get Kim’s regime back to the negotiating table.

Seoul and Washington maintain the battery is aimed at countering North Korea, as the reclusive state continues to develop nuclear weapons – including with a quadruple ballistic missile test Monday.

This photo of a surface-to-surface medium-long range missile was released by North Korea last month.

Trump also spoke to South Korea’s acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn to discuss the North’s missile launches, Hwang’s office said.

The launch was “a grave threat to our country’s national security”, the government’s spokesman Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.

The U.S. Pacific Command stressed that the antimissile system is a “strictly defensive capability” and “poses no threat to other countries in the region”, in what appeared to be an effort to appease Beijing and Moscow. He asked Abe to trust him and the United States.

Amid North Korea’s persistent provocations, …

“Terminal High Altitude Area Defence” (THAAD) is an anti-missile system created to protect against threats from North Korea.

Japan also plans to reinforce its ballistic missile defenses and is considering buying either THAAD or building a ground-based version of the Aegis system that is now deployed on ships in the Sea of Japan.