President Trump explained to China’s President Xi Jinping his position on the deployment of a missile defense system in South Korea, South Korea’s acting leader said Saturday.
South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said Trump discussed his talks with China’s president during a phone call Saturday, according to Reuters.
{mosads}”President Trump said he and President Xi held in-depth discussions on the seriousness of North Korea’s nuclear problem and how to respond to it, and also said he had conveyed the U.S. position on the (High Altitude Area Defense) THAAD deployment,” Hwang said in a statement.
Trump held extensive discussions with Xi during a summit meeting at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The White House on Friday said that the bilateral talks were “positive and productive.”
“The two leaders had positive and productive meetings. President Trump and President Xi agreed to work in concert to expand areas of cooperation while managing differences based on mutual respect,” the White House said in a statement.
“The two sides noted the urgency of the threat of North Korea’s weapons programs, reaffirmed their commitment to a denuclearized Korean peninsula, and committed to fully implement UN Security Council resolutions,” the White House added.
Trump’s decision to begin the deployment of THAAD in South Korea in March was met with strong political resistance from Russia and China.
Both countries argued that the defense system will infringe upon their strategic capabilities and not stabilize the situation on the Korean Peninsula.