Park to meet ruling party lawmakers for talks over THAAD

President Park Geun-hye will meet nearly a dozen lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party on Thursday morning to solicit their views on the planned deployment of an advanced U.S. antimissile system to the peninsula, her office Cheong Wa Dae said.

The meeting is part of her efforts to address continued opposition by some politicians and citizens to the plan to station a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery in the southern town of Seongju by end-2017.

The president will meet 11 lawmakers from Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, including Rep. Yi Wan-young, who represents Seongju.

President Park Geun-hye speaks during a meeting with 11 lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party on the planned deployment of an advanced U.S. anti-missile system to South Korea at her office Cheong Wa Dae on Aug. 4.(Yonhap)

Since the allies announced the deployment site last month, residents in Seongju have vehemently opposed the plan. The residents fear that THAAD's powerful radar system could pose health risks and hurt their agricultural crops, and that their hometown could become a military target in case of an armed conflict on the peninsula.

Strong opposition also comes from China and Russia that argue THAAD, a core element of America's global multilayered missile defense program, will needlessly escalate regional military tensions and undermine their security interests.

Highlighting the defensive nature of the missile interception system, Park has repeatedly defended the deployment plan as a "self-defense" measure to counter Pyongyang's evolving nuclear and missile threats. (Yonhap)