By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter


Alexander Vershbow, 53, a U.S. ambassador-designate to South Korea, is known as a Europe expert who was deeply involved in settling Washington’s relations with Moscow, especially over arms reduction and nonproliferation issues during the Cold War era.

Given his career, Vershbow should be knowledgeable of North Korea’s missile and nuclear issues, even though the former ambassador to Moscow has not been in charge of Northeast Asia affairs.

From July 2001 to the end of last year, he served as the ambassador to Moscow, one of the rare ideological allies of Pyongyang in the Cold War period.

His nomination for the new post in Seoul, announced on Thursday, needs the Senate’s confirmation. If passed, he will fill the post, which has been vacant since April, when Christopher Hill, who was promoted to an assistant secretary of state, returned to Washington to address Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

Vershbow was director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Soviet Union Affairs during the last years of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and participated in numerous U.S.-Soviet summits and ministerial meetings.

This experience is expected to help him deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions as well as the regional security issue in Northeast Asia after the settlement of the nuclear issue.

Vershbow’s strong support of human rights, which was highlighted when he criticized Moscow for its crackdowns on Chechen rebels, makes many people in South Korea predict that he will try to raise the issue of North Korea’s poor human rights record.

But Kim Sung-han, professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul, said that Vershbow would take a ``cautious approach’’ toward the issue because Washington has already appointed Jay Lefkowitz as a special envoy to monitor the human rights situation in the Communist state.

``If Vershbow takes the initiative on the North’s human rights issue, it could be interpreted as infringing on Lefkowitz’s role,’’ Kim told The Korea Times. ``So he will take a cautious approach. But if he receives an instruction from Washington (to take action on the human rights issue), then he would choose a different course of action. So Washington will decide the tone of his actions.’’

Vershbow’s past posts include U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), special assistant to the president, and senior director of European affairs at the National Security Council.

He is said to have close ties with both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary Hill.

A passionate drummer, who is often called by his nickname ``Sandy,’’ the U.S. diplomat is said to have been studying Korea and the Korean language for months.

im@koreatimes.co.kr