Deploying THAAD is a direct product of U.S. ambition to dominate the world and South Korea's confrontational moves against the DPRK, it noted.
One day after the THAAD announcement, the DPRK reportedly conducted test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile in waters southeast of the DPRK's eastern port city of Sinpo. Media reports said the test appeared to have failed.
Yonhap news agency cited South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying that the missile was successfully ignited but later exploded in mid-air.
South Korea later denounced the test-firing as another round of provocation by Pyongyang, saying that successful or not, it has once again breached UN Security Council resolutions.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said the country will never tolerate its northern neighbor conducting such provocations, vowing to continue applying sanctions against it and strengthening a combined deterrence with the United States.
REGIONAL COUNTRIES VOICED SEVERE OPPOSITION
Although the United States and South Korea said that THAAD will not target any other third country, the U.S. missile defense system has far exceeded South Korea's defense needs and would directly threaten the strategic security of China and Russia.
On Friday, China said it is "strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes to" the THAAD deployment, warning the move may further destabilize the Korean Peninsula and hold down efforts to achieve denuclearization through dialogue.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged Washington and Seoul to terminate the deployment, which will severely harm the security interests of regional countries as well as the "strategic balance" in the region.
One day later, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi noted that China was within its right to question the behind-the-scenes motives of the move.
Wang called on South Korea to be cool-headed and think over what the deployment could actually bring for its security, for the realization of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, as well as for the settlement of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.
In Russia, the Foreign Ministry on Friday voiced "serious concern" over and condemnation against the THAAD deployment, saying such "ill-considered" actions will bring "tragic and irreparable consequences for the situation in Northeast Asia and beyond," and undermine the global strategic balance.
Evgeny Serebrennikov, deputy chairman of Russia's Arms Committee at the upper parliament house, also said Friday that the committee would work with the Defense Ministry to decide on military plans including deployment of missiles and ground units to counter THAAD.
