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This US State Department photo shows Philip Goldberg, who has been tapped as the next US ambassador to South Korea according to sources. (from the US Department of State website)

Current US Ambassador to Colombia Philip Goldberg has been tapped to serve as US ambassador to South Korea, a post that has been vacant for the past year, sources said Wednesday.

According to various diplomatic sources knowledgeable about South Korea-US relations, the Biden administration picked Goldberg as the ambassador nominee for the US mission in South Korea earlier this year and asked the South Korean government for an “agrément.” French for “agreement,” agrément is the procedure through which a foreign country asks a host country for approval of a diplomatic appointment.

According to a newsletter from US news outlet Politico on Jan. 20, a White House spokesperson recently stated, “We are in the process of selecting a talented, deeply experienced career foreign service officer to fill this important role serving as Ambassador from the United States to the Republic of Korea. We are in the final stages of that process and expect a nominee to be announced soon.”

A Blue House senior official also said, “The South Korean government has been notified of the nominee [for US ambassador to Korea].”

Once the Biden administration makes a formal announcement, the nominee will have to be confirmed by the Senate before starting their duties. Because the confirmation process takes months, the ambassador’s post — which has been vacant for the past year since Harry Harris stepped down in January of 2021 — will likely not be filled before South Korean President Moon Jae-in leaves office.

Goldberg is a seasoned diplomat with the personal rank of career ambassador, the highest rank available in the US Foreign Service. Together with Christopher Hill, the former ambassador to South Korea who midwived the Sept. 19, 2005, joint statement of the six-party talks, Goldberg learned the art of diplomacy as the Bosnia desk officer and special assistant to the late Richard Holbrooke, widely known as an expert of conflict resolution for his role in shepherding the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War.

Goldberg’s first stint in Northeast Asian and Korean Peninsula affairs was as a coordinator for the implementation of UN sanctions against North Korea (June 2009 - June 2010) during the early days of the Barack Obama administration. After, he served as assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2010-2013) and served as the US ambassador to the Philippines (2013-2016) prior to Sung Kim, the current US special envoy for North Korea who previously served as US special envoy for the six-party talks and US ambassador to South Korea.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer; Lee Wan, staff reporter

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