Beijing - Arab Today
South Korean President Park Geun-hye will hold a summit with her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Hangzhou, China, on Monday amid tensions over the planned deployment of an advanced US antimissile system to South Korea.
Seoul's Presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on Sunday said Park and Xi will hold the summit in the morning on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies in China's eastern lakeside city, state news agency (Yonhap) reported.
The two-way summit has been arranged as Beijing remains opposed to the plan by Seoul and Washington to station a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, a core element of America's global missile defense program, to the Korean Peninsula by the end of next year.
Seoul has defended its deployment plan as an "inevitable, self-defense" measure to counter Pyongyang's evolving nuclear and missile threats. The communist regime's recent test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile has further strengthened the case for THAAD.
But Beijing has argued that the THAAD deployment would needlessly escalate regional military tensions and undermine its strategic security interest.
Source: QNA