South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Friday made her first mention of a conditional deployment of the U.S. missile shield, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), in South Korean soil, before leaving for Russia to participate in the Eastern Economic Forum.
"The essence of the problem in this matter is the North's nuclear and missile threats. If these threats are eliminated, the need to deploy the THAAD system would naturally disappear,"Park said in a written interview with Russia's Rossiya Segodnya which was posted on a Cheong Wa Dae website.
It marked the first time the South Korean leader mentioned the conditional THAAD deployment, showing signs of a slight change in her hard-line position ahead of her trips to Russia and China that have strongly opposed the U.S. missile defense system.
Park is set to visit Vladivostok for two days to attend the second Eastern Economic Forum and hold a bilateral summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The forum was launched last year to speed up development of the Russian Far East.
She will move to China to attend Group of 20 (G20) summit scheduled to be held in Hangzhou from Sunday to Monday.
Park, however, reiterated that the THAAD deployment is a measure of self-defense to protect from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s"ever-escalating" nuclear and missile threats.
She said there is no reason, nor practical benefit, for the THAAD system to target any third country, contrasting with repeated expressions of strong objections and worries from China and Russia.
Chinese and Russian objections to THAAD in South Korea came as the U.S. missile shield's X-band radar can peer deep into Chinese and Russian territories, breaking strategic balance in the region and damaging security interests of the two countries.
