December 1 – According to Yonhap News Agency, on December 1, Wen Hongzhi, deputy spokesman of the South Korean Ministry of Defense, said at a regular press conference that the government reiterated its intention of joining the U.S. missile defense system.
Wen Hongzhi said that after the South Korean government first stated that it would not participate more than 20 years ago, no matter how the government changed, it always adhered to this position.
Wen Hongzhi also said that the South Korean army independently built a Korean missile defense system and launched a joint missile defense operation on the Korean Peninsula based on the interoperability between South Korea and the United States to deal with the ballistic missile threat.
He said that if South Korea really wants to join the U.S. missile defense system, it needs to use the same system or jointly develop weapons with the U.S. military like NATO, but South Korea has not taken similar measures and only carries out defensive operations based on the interoperability of information sharing.
