Cho Tae-yong

Cho Tae-yong
조태용
Director of the National Intelligence Service
Assumed office
16 January 2024
PresidentYoon Suk-yeol
Preceded byKim Kyou-hyun
Director of the National Security Office
In office
30 March 2023 – 31 December 2023
PresidentYoon Suk-yeol
Preceded byKim Sung-han
Succeeded byChang Ho-jin
South Korean Ambassador to the United States
In office
11 June 2022 – 29 March 2023
PresidentYoon Suk-yeol
Preceded byLee Soo-hyuck
Succeeded byCho Hyun-dong
Personal details
Born (1956-08-29) 29 August 1956 (age 68)
Seoul, South Korea
Political partyIndependent
Alma materSeoul National University (BA)

Cho Tae-yong (Korean조태용; Hanja趙太庸; born 29 August 1956) is a South Korean career diplomat with over three decades of experience who served as South Korea's National Security Advisor from March[1][2] to December 2023. On January 16, 2024, he was appointed Director of the National Intelligence Service of South Korea.

Cho has extensive experience in a range of high-level diplomatic assignments dealing with the United States and North Korea. In November 2016, he represented South Korea in talks with Michael Flynn and other members of then-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy team on North Korea.[3] He and then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken held five rounds of U.S.-South Korea strategic consultations on North Korea between 2015 and 2017.[4] As South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister between 2014 and 2015, he represented South Korea in regular U.S.-South Korea-Japan trilateral talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama.[5]

He is not to be confused with Cho Tae-yul, a similarly named South Korean career diplomat who was South Korea's Second Vice Foreign Minister of Affairs until 2016 and currently serves as the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations.[6]

  1. ^ "Impact Player: Cho Tae-yong". Korea JoongAng Daily. Retrieved 2 January 2024.
  2. ^ "The Leaderboard: Cho Tae-yong | cogitASIA CSIS Asia Policy Blog". www.cogitasia.com. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  3. ^ "Trump's national security adviser vows to tackle North Korea..." Reuters. 19 November 2016. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  4. ^ "01/03/17 - Visit of Republic of Korea (ROK) Deputy National Security Advisor Cho Tae-yong". U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Korea. 3 January 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  5. ^ "Deputy Secretary of State Blinken Travel to Japan and the Republic of Korea". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  6. ^ United Nations Press Release, 5 Dec 2016, https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/bio4906.doc.htm