South Korea's ruling party lost a parliamentary majority in this week's general elections, but the result isn't expected to affect Seoul's position on the issue of a THAAD missile defense system, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday.

"I don't think this changes things for President Park (Geun-hye) and her approach to this," Brian McKeon, principal deputy under secretary of defense, said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing when asked about implications on THAAD of the ruling Saenuri Party's defeat in Wednesday's elections.

"So I think we're optimistic we will get to a decision. I just don't have a timeline for you," he said.

Shortly after the North's long-range rocket launch in February, the South and the U.S. jointly announced they would begin official discussions on the possible placement of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in the South.

McKeon said there have since been "some meetings out in Korea looking at the siting and the funding issue."

Vice Adm. James Syring, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, also told the hearing that THAAD "can provide fantastic coverage capability for not only our ally there, but our U.S. deployed forces."

"I'm confident in the design of that system and its intercept record, and if the decision were to be made, I stand by it's the right material solution," he said.

China has expressed strong opposition to the potential deployment, arguing that the system can be used against it, despite repeated assurances from Washington that the system is aimed only at deterring North Korean threats

"We have a firm view as expressed previously this is about protecting our deployed forces and our Korean partners and has nothing to do with China or China's deterrent and they shouldn't worry about it," McKeon said. (Yonhap)