SEOUL, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) on South Korean soil will negatively affect peace on the Korean Peninsula as well as regional and global security as it breaks strategic balance and boost arms race, experts here said Thursday.
"THAAD is an issue to have a big negative impact on the Korean Peninsula, Northeast Asia and the world peace as well as South Korea," Cheong Wook-sik, director of Peace Network and co-chair of steering committee of Civil Peace Forum, said during a press conference with foreign correspondents in Seoul.
Cheong expected THAAD in South Korea to raise tensions, rather than deter the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile threats, which the South Korean government cited as a main reason for the THAAD deployment on its territory.
The DPRK test-fired three short-range ballistic missiles on Tuesday in an apparent show of force to protest against the decision on July 13 to install the U.S. missile defense system in a county some 250 km southeast of Seoul by the end of next year.
Just a day after the agreement between Seoul and Washington on July 8 to deploy one THAAD battery on an unidentified region, Pyongyang fired off a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) off the east coast. The DPRK's military warned of taking "physical measures" when the site is determined.
Cheong noted that the DPRK has a variety of vehicles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. THAAD is an advanced U.S. missile defense system designed to shoot down missiles at a relatively high altitude of 40-150 km using a hit-to-kill technology.
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