Chun Yungwoo

Night Sessions - "North Korea’s Choice: Nuclear Issue"

Ambassador Chun Yungwoo is chairman and founder of The Korean Peninsula Future Forum (KPFF), a think-tank with a particular focus on strategies for positive changes in North Korea and an eventual unification of the Korean Peninsula. He is also a columnist for DongA Ilbo, a major newspaper in Korea. Amb. Chun served as security advisor to President Lee Myung-Bak for the second half of the President’s term from October 2010 to February 2013. Before his appointment to the Office of the President, he spent 33 years in public service as a career diplomat. He served in key posts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including as the second vice foreign minister (October 2009 – October 2010), special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, head of the ROK Delegation to the Six-Party Talks (February 2006 – April 2008), and deputy foreign minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations (January 2005 – April 2006). His senior overseas assignments include ambassador to the United Kingdom (May 2008 – November 2009) and ambassador/deputy permanent representative to the UN in New York (June 2003 – January 2005). He also served in France, Morocco, and Austria as a junior and mid-career diplomat in the 1980s and 1990s. Amb. Chun has extensive expertise in the areas of international and national security policies, geopolitics of Northeast Asia and in dealing with North Korea. He has earned international credentials in the field of WMD nonproliferation, serving as chairman of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) in 2003 and as a member of the UN Missile Panel (2003-4). He remains an active participant in international discourse on nonproliferation and disarmament as a member of the Nuclear Crisis Group under the auspices of Global Zero and the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (APLN). Amb. Chun was born in Milyang on January 27, 1952. He graduated from Pusan National University with a B.A. in French in 1977 and received a M.A. in international affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in 1994.