Cho Tae-yong

Cho Tae-yong joined the foreign ministry in 1980 after graduating from Seoul National University. His postings included the UN, Iraq, the United States, and Thailand, followed by ambassadorships to Ireland and Australia. He specialized in North American affairs and North Korea's nuclear program, serving as deputy head of the South Korean delegation to the Six-Party Talks and later as the government's chief nuclear envoy. He became first vice foreign minister in 2014 and deputy national security director in 2015. ^{1, 2}

Elected to the National Assembly in 2020, Cho returned to diplomacy as ambassador in 2022. An immediate Washington dispute concerned the Inflation Reduction Act and the exclusion of Korean electric vehicles from American tax benefits. In August he publicly described Seoul's objections and announced that the governments had agreed to formal consultations. He committed to pressing the issue with Congress and the administration, while acknowledging that resolving it would require substantial effort. ^{2, 3}

Cho left Washington in March 2023 to become national security adviser and subsequently headed the National Intelligence Service. His later career became entangled in the proceedings over Yoon Suk Yeol’s December 2024 martial law declaration. In August 2026 the Seoul High Court increased his prison sentence to two and a half years. It found that he violated the intelligence service’s prohibition on political involvement by circulating false statements about orders to arrest politicians, and convicted him of perjury and destruction of evidence. It upheld acquittals on dereliction of duty and a separate charge concerning disclosure of CCTV footage. ^{2, 4, 5}