WASHINGTON– White House policy coordinator for Asia Kurt Campbell has acknowledged the need to quickly appoint a new U.S. ambassador to South Korea, a group of South Korean lawmakers said Thursday.
The Joe Biden administration has yet to nominate a new ambassador to South Korea, more than nine months since taking office in January.
The lawmakers said they asked the White House official to quickly appoint a new ambassador to Seoul while meeting with him in Washington this week.
Campbell said he “fully understands,” said the South Korean lawmakers, who are members of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee currently on a visit to the U.S. for the annual parliamentary audit of the South Korean embassy here.
Christopher Del Corso has been serving as acting chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Seoul since his appointment as deputy chief of mission in June.
Meanwhile, the White House said the U.S. president has nominated former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill as new U.S. ambassador to Serbia.
Hill also served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Poland and Macedonia, as well as the top U.S. negotiator in the now-defunct six-party denuclearization talks on North Korea before retiring from the foreign service in 2010.
Source: Yonhap News Agency