U.S. reported set to replace Seoul envoy

Christopher R. Hill, 52, the current U.S. ambassador to Poland, is in line to succeed Thomas Hubbard as the ambassador to South Korea in August, Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported yesterday.
According to the wire service, Mr. Hill has been proposed as the next ambassador by Washington, and awaits approval by Seoul and confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Both the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and the Foreign Ministry said they could not confirm the report.
Such announcements are usually made only after the government of the receiving country approves an ambassador’s assignment.
Mr. Hill served as an economic officer at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul in the 1980s.
He is a career diplomat who has spent his recent years mainly in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Before his assignment in Warsaw, Mr. Hill served as a director for Southeast European affairs at the National Security Council.
He has also served as U.S. ambassador to Macedonia and as a special envoy during the Kosovo crisis. He is the recipient of the Robert S. Frasure Award for Peace Negotiations and the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award for his work on the Bosnian peace negotiations.
Mr. Hill has an economics degree from Bowdoin College in Maine and a master’s degree from the Naval War College. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon from 1974-76. He joined the State Department in 1977.

by Choi Jie-ho