South Korea's presidential office on Tuesday announced the appointment of Yun Duk-min, who previously headed the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, as the country's next ambassador to Japan.
Yun, a foreign policy expert known for his knowledge of Japan, visited Tokyo two weeks before South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol took office on May 10 as part of a delegation that held talks with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and a number of high-ranking Japanese officials.
The 62-year-old, who obtained a doctoral degree at Japan's Keio University and is fluent in Japanese, has said relations between Seoul and Tokyo should not deteriorate any further under the new South Korean president.
Bilateral ties remain frayed over issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, but the leaders of the two countries have expressed their intention to mend them.
The new ambassador said last month in a speech at a seminar that trust-building efforts could help improve the soured relationship. He said in an interview in February that as China emerges and makes assertive moves, regional "stability and equilibrium" can be attained only through normalization of the bilateral ties.
The presidential office also announced the appointment of Chung Jae-ho, a professor at Seoul National University, as ambassador to China and Chang Ho-jin, a former director general for North American affairs at the Foreign Ministry, as ambassador to Russia.
