No. of petitioners to White House against THAAD deployment tops 100,000

Published : Aug 11, 2016 - 13:32 Updated : Aug 11, 2016 - 14:02

The number of people filing petitions to the White House has reached above the 100,000 mark against the decision by South Korea and the United States to set up a new missile defense system in South Korea to counter North Korea's missile threats, a section of the U.S. administration's website said Wednesday.

As of the afternoon of the same day, a petition against the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system drew a total of 103,335 signatures on We the People, a petitioning system operated by the White House.

This image taken from We the People, a petitioning system operated by the White House, on Aug. 10, 2016, shows a petition titled "Rescind the decision to deploy THAAD antimissile system in South Korea." (Yonhap)

The petition titled "Rescind the decision to deploy THAAD antimissile system in South Korea" was submitted to the petitioning system on July 15.

The petition, created by H.S., said, "The U.S. and South Korean governments, against wide opposition of South Koreans and strong subsequent backlash from local citizens of the deployment site, have agreed to deploy the U.S.-made THAAD system in South Korea."

It also said this measure is supposedly to counter North Korean ballistic missiles and provide additional security, yet this is a controversial move that will likely escalate tension in the region, by provoking North Korea, China and Russia into a spiraling arms race.

Last month, Seoul and Washington announced their plan to install a THAAD system in the southeastern town of Seongju by end-2017.

The petition submitter's identity is not fully known. According to an official at a Seongju-based ad hoc group opposing the antimissile system, the group had launched a campaign to help the number of signatures for the petition reach more than the 100,000 threshold after learning that a Korean-American submitted the petition to the site.

Under the petitioning system, a petition that reaches 100,000 signatures within 30 days after its submission warrants an official response from the U.S. administration. (Yonhap)