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April 29th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : The government of South Korea refuted U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for Seoul to pay $1 billion for the THAAD missile defense system on the peninsula. South Korea’s Ministry of Defense, on Friday, issued a statement saying “There is no change in South Korea and the United States’ position that our government provides the land and supporting facilities and the U.S. bears the cost of THAAD system’s deployment, operation and maintenance.”
Courtesy Lockheed Martin
In 2016 the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) a.k.a. South Korea agreed to deploy the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system. The agreement was reached by the administrations of then U.S. President Barack Obama and then, now impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Park evaded demands that she seek National Assembly approval for the agreement. One of Park’s strategies was to claim that the deployment of the THAAD system did not require additional defense funding.
However, speaking with the Reuters news agency on Thursday in Washington Trump reportedly said he wants South Korea to pay for the system. It is currently unknown how serious Trump was by making this demand public via a news agency. Some might suspect that Trump postures for a domestic audience and those who oppose expected, sharp increase in military spending during his presidency.
However, Trump’s mysterious $1 billion demand has – as far as it is publicly known – not been formal. It may thus have been a message styled to South Korea’s presidential candidates and their parties. A former U.S. State Department official estimated the cost of the system at $1.2 billion, but said the United States would not want to sell THAAD to Seoul.
The currently leading presidential candidate, Moon Jae-in, with the liberal leaning Democratic Party of Korea, has said he wants to postpone deploying the U.S. advanced anti-missile system until the new president takes office and can evaluate its benefits and drawbacks. Moon’s spokesman Youn Kwan-suk Friday called for the THAAD deployment to be “immediately suspended,” and a foreign policy adviser, Kim Ki-jung at Seoul’s Yonsei University, said that purchasing THAAD would be “an impossible option,” adding that the cost issue was a key concern behind the candidate’s position that the deployment to be delayed. Moon is currently comfortably ahead in the most recent Gallup election poll, with 40 percent support. It is rather likely that Moon, once in office, politely would tell the United States “if you want to play geopolitics in Korea, pay for it”.
Ahn Cheol-soo, the People’s Party candidate who ranks second in the polls, has supported THAAD as a needed defense measure despite concerns among some of his more liberal supporters that it is not worth the risk of provoking North Korea and alienating China. Ahn is currently at 24 percent in the recent Gallup poll. Ahn’s deputy spokeswoman, Nemo Kim, said Friday she is surprised by Trump’s demand and stated that the People’s Party candidate would not support THAAD under such a condition. “It’s definitely something that the Korean people cannot agree to, obviously, since this deal took place with the current (acting) administration,” Kim said. Kim also demanded the deal struck between the Park and Obama administrations be made public immediately to clarify what South Korea’s obligations are.
Conservative Liberty Korea Party candidate Hong Joon-pyo, a strong THAAD supporter who is at 12 percent in the poll, has not yet commented on Trump’s seeming demand for $1 billion in THAAD reimbursement costs.
Ironically mysterious message came amidst increased tensions between the USA and North Korea (DPRK) and within the context of an inconsistent policy. Earlier this month Trump boasted the U.S. has “very, very powerful weapon, submarines, very, very powerful indeed”. Trump said in the Oval Office interview he wants to resolve the crisis peacefully, possibly through the use of new economic sanctions, but added, “There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea.”
China has told Washington it has warned Pyongyang of new Chinese sanctions if it conducts another nuclear test, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a Fox News interview Thursday . That would be a departure for Beijing, which has until now been unwilling to impose sanctions beyond those ordered by the United Nations. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman declined to confirm or deny Tillerson’s statement Friday, dismissing the question at a briefing as “hypothetical.” It is noteworthy that Beijing repeatedly stressed that the THAAD system’s radar could be used to spy on China and that the system poses a potential military threat.
F/AK – nsnbc 28.04.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/04/28/south-korea-refuted-trumps-mysterious-1b-thaad-demand/
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