missile system had been brought into the country, his spokesman said on Tuesday.
The Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system battery was initially deployed in
March in the southeastern region of Seongju with just two of its maximum load
of six launchers to counter a growing North Korean missile threat.
During his
successful campaign for the May 9 presidential election, Moon called for a
parliamentary review of the system, whose deployment has also infuriated China,
North Korea's lone major ally.
"President
Moon said it was very shocking" to hear the four additional launchers had
been installed without being reported to the new government or to the public,
presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan told a media briefing.
Moon had
campaigned on a more moderate approach to Pyongyang, calling for engagement
even as the reclusive state pursues nuclear weapons and ballistic missile
programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and threats of more
sanctions.
The U.S.
military in South Korea did not have immediate comment on Moon's comments. The
South Korean military also did not immediately comment.
CHINA
TENSIONS EASING
Moon's order
of a probe into the THAAD launchers came amid signs of easing tensions between
major trading partners South Korea and China.
South
Korea's Jeju Air said on Tuesday China has approved a plan to double its
flights to the Chinese city of Weihai from June 2.
China has
been incensed over the THAAD deployment, fearing it could give the U.S.
military the capability of seeing into its own missile systems, and could open
the door to a wider deployment of the system, possibly in Japan and elsewhere,
military analysts say.
China has
denied it had discriminated against South Korean companies, which have faced
product boycotts and bans on Chinese tourists visiting South Korea.
A
Korean-Chinese joint drama “My Goddess, My Mom" starring South Korean
actress Lee Da-hae, whose broadcast had been indefinitely delayed in China, was
told by its Chinese partner recently that it will soon be aired, according to
JS Pictures, Lee's agent.
An official
at South Korean tour agency Mode Tour told Reuters it hoped China may lift a
ban on selling trips to South Korea, which had been in place since March 15, as
early as the second week of June.
Although
there have been no official orders from the Chinese government to lift the ban,
a few Chinese travel agencies have sent inquiries about package tours, he said.
However, Lotte Group has yet to reopen any of the 74 retail stores in China it
was forced to close in March after the group allowed South Korea to install the
THAAD system on land it owned.
BOMBER DRILL
The United
States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, has a mutual defense
treaty with Seoul dating back to the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended
in a truce that has left the peninsula in a technical state of war.
South
Korea's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday it had conducted a joint drill with a
U.S. supersonic B-1B Lancer bomber on Monday. North Korea's state media had
earlier accused the United States of staging "a nuclear bomb dropping
drill".
Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe talked to Moon by phone on Tuesday, Japan's Foreign
Ministry said in a statement, and both agreed that North Korea's continued
provocations were unacceptable.
Abe told
Moon that dialogue for dialogue's sake with North Korea would be meaningless,
and that China's role in exerting pressure on the North was important.
The North's
KCNA news agency reported leader Kim Jong Un supervised Monday's test of a
missile equipped with a new precision guidance system and an improved
pre-launch automated sequence and a new mobile launch vehicle.
Kim said
North Korea would develop more powerful weapons in multiple phases in
accordance with its timetable to defend North Korea against the United States.
"He
expressed the conviction that it would make a greater leap forward in this
spirit to send a bigger 'gift package' to the Yankees" in retaliation for
American military provocation, KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
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