By Yoo Seungki
SEOUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- South Korean government officials on Monday sought to tout the need for deploying the U.S. missile defense system, called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), in its territory despite oppositions and controversies at home and abroad.
President Park Geun-hye told a meeting with her senior advisors that the THAAD deployment would be a defensive measure to protect her country from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile threats. Park said the U.S. interceptors will neither target any third-party nations nor infringe on security interests of any other country.
Her comments came amid strong oppositions from neighboring countries. China and Russia have opposed to the THAAD deployment on the South Korean soil as its X-band radar can spot Chinese and Russian territories.
Seoul has claimed that it will adopt the terminal mode radar with a maximum detectable range of 600 km, but it can be converted at any time into the forward-based mode as the two modes use the same hardware. The forward-based mode can range targets as far as 2,000 km.
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