S. Korea to Replace Envoys to Four Major Powers

South Korea's longest-serving ambassador to China will return home later Tuesday to face a parliamentary confirmation hearing on his nomination as Seoul's point man on North Korea, the Foreign Ministry said.

President Lee Myung-bak's appointment of Kim Ha-joong as unification minister marks the first change of Seoul's top envoy to Beijing in more than six years. Lawmakers are expected to grill him next week over his ethics and job performance, but they have no right to endorse or veto a Cabinet nomination. The National Assembly can only express its opinion to the president.

President Lee is likely to pick Kim's successor soon along with a new ambassador to Japan to lay the ground for his goal of bolstering Seoul's ties with four major powers which have a great interest in the Korean Peninsula. The two others are the United States and Russia.

The ambassadorial job in Tokyo has been vacant since Yu Myung-hwan was chosen as foreign minister last week.

Diplomatic sources say the conservative president, who took office a week ago after ten years of liberal rule, may inject more new faces into the line-up of his major envoys abroad.

A local media report said Ambassador to Moscow Lee Kyu-hyung is about to resign, but the move has not been confirmed yet.

The report said Ambassador to Washington Lee Tae-sik will likely be replaced after the new president's summit with his American counterpart George W. Bush in the U.S. in the middle of April.

Some sources say high-profile politicians may be included in the list of the new ambassadors to the four powers, while many expect the performance-oriented president to favor career diplomats.

Seoul's chief nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo is said to be in the short-list of candidates for ambassador to Beijing.

Among the candidates for ambassador to Tokyo are Shin Jung-seung, former ambassador to New Zealand, and Choo Kyu-ho, commissioner of the Korea Immigration Office and formerly Foreign Ministry spokesman. (Yonhap)