Biographical Note

Park In-kook of Republic of Korea Chair of Second Committee

Park In-kook, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations, was elected Chair of its Second Committee (Economic and Financial) on 10 June.  (See Press Release GA/10831.)

At the time of his appointment, Mr. Park was Deputy Minister for Policy, Planning and International Organizations in the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.  Prior to that, he served as Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organizations in Geneva from 2005 to 2006.  He was Ambassador to Kuwait between 2003 and 2005.

In 2002, Mr. Park was an aide to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, before his appointment as Secretary for International Security in the Office of the President.  From 1999 to 2002, he was Minister Counsellor in his country’s embassy in Belgium and in its Permanent Mission to the European Union in Brussels.  From 1996 to 1999, he was Director-General for International Cooperation in the Office of Planning for the Light Water Reactor Project in Seoul.  Between 1994 and 1996, he served as Director of the Disarmament and Nuclear Energy Division in the Foreign Ministry’s United Nations System Bureau.

Prior to a stint as First Secretary in his country’s Washington, D.C., embassy in 1991, Mr. Park served in Saudi Arabia from 1986 to 1989, when he was named Principal Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.  Having joined the Ministry in 1978, he was appointed Consul in the New York City Consulate General, where he served from 1981 to 1986.

Mr. Park graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Chinese language and literature in 1975, and from that institution’s School of Law in 1980.

He is married and has two sons.

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/3988 of 5 June 2008.

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