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Ban Ki-Moon of the Republic of Korea
is the eighth Secretary General of the United Nations and brings 37 years of
service to his post both in government and on the global stage.
Mr. Ban was his country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and
Trade at the time of his election as Secretary General of the United
Nations. His long tenure with the
ministry included postings in New Delhi, Washington D.C. and Vienna. He was assigned the responsibility for a
variety of portfolios such as Foreign Policy Advisor to the President, Chief
National Security Advisor to the President, Deputy Minister for Policy
Planning and Director General of American Affairs. His guiding vision throughout this service
was a peaceful Korean peninsula, playing an expanding role for peace and
prosperity in the region and wider world.
He has longstanding ties with the United Nations. He
worked for the Foreign Ministry’s United Nations division in 1975 and the
work expanded over the years with assignments as First Secretary at the ROK’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, Director
of the UN Division at the ministry’s headquarters in Seoul and Ambassador to
Vienna, during which time he served as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission
for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization in 1999. He facilitated the prompt adoption of the
first resolution of the session, condemning the terrorist attacks of 11
September, and undertook a number of initiatives aimed at strengthening the
assembly’s functioning as Chef-de-Cabinet during the ROK’s
Presidency of the General Assembly.
Mr. Ban has also been actively involved in issues related
to inter-Korean relations. He served as Vice Chair of the south-North Joint
Nuclear Control Commission following the adoption of the historic Joint
declaration of the Korean
Peninsula as Special
Advisor to the Foreign Minister in 1992.
As Foreign Minister in September 2005, he played a leading role in
bringing about landmark agreement aimed at promoting peace and stability on
the Korean peninsula with the adoption at the six Party Talks of the Joint
Statement on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.
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