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Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chon was named Tuesday as the chief of South Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York, the Foreign Ministry said.

A graduate of the Columbia University in New York, the 48-year-old Kim led the country's negotiations with the United States for a free trade agreement that were concluded earlier in the year.

Kim began working for the Foreign Ministry in 1995 as a general counsel and served as a legal advisor at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

In a reshuffle of diplomatic posts abroad, Cho Tae-yong, a senior assistant to Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, was named ambassador to Ireland while Kim Joong-jae, former director-general of the ministry's European affairs bureau, was assigned as ambassador to Italy.

Yang Bong-ryull, former consul general to Houston, was named ambassador to Malaysia while Shin Un, a former member of the mission to the United Nations in New York, was named ambassador to Pakistan.

Shin Bong-kil, a former minister at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing, was appointed to head the South Korean embassy in Jordan, and Kim Soo-il, a former advisor to the Presidential Committee for Northeast Asia Initiative, was assigned as ambassador to East Timor.

Cho Sung-hwan, former director of the ministry's North America division, was named ambassador to Oman.

Zeon Nam-jin, a minister at the South Korean Embassy in Italy, was promoted to ambassador to Fiji while Kim Joo-teck, a minister at the South Korean Embassy in Peru, also got a promotion to ambassador to Paraguay.

The reshuffle also affected consul generals in New York, Frankfurt, Cheongdu, Sao Paulo, Osaka and Nagoya.

SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Yonhap News)