SEOUL, July 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korean citizens, politicians and news organizations are raising a dissenting voice over the decision between Seoul and Washington to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in their homeland.
Villagers living in the site where one THAAD battery is scheduled to be installed by the end of next year continue their protest against the U.S. missile defense system, while civic group activists and student groups who advocate peace and stability rally against the U.S. weapons program.
Opposition lawmakers call for the retraction of the THAAD deployment decision, and in several TV programs, panelists are divided over pros and cons of the installation, which reflects the nationwide split between people over the untested, environmentally hazardous U.S. anti-missile system.
Park Wan-joo, first vice floor leader of the main opposition Minjoo Party, told a party meeting on Thursday that the THAAD deployment raised risks of easing isolation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), asking to form a special parliamentary committee to discuss countermeasures against possible negative effects.
Following the DPRK's fourth nuclear test in January and its launch in February of a long-range rocket, which was condemned as a disguised test of ballistic missile technology, the international community adopted tougher-than-ever UN Security Council resolutions.
The agreed-upon THAAD installation raised concerns here about difficulties that South Korea could face in winning cooperation from China and Russia to achieve the goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. China and Russia have expressed strong oppositions to the deployment as it breaks regional strategic balance and damages security interests of the neighbors.
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