| Cho Tae-yong | |
| Birth Date: | 29 August 1956 |
| Birth Place: | Seoul, South Korea |
| Alma Mater: | Seoul National University (BA) |
| Party: | Independent |
| Office: | Director of the National Intelligence Service |
| President: | Yoon Suk-yeol |
| Termstart: | 16 January 2024 |
| Predecessor: | Kim Kyou-hyun |
| Office1: | Director of the National Security Office |
| President1: | Yoon Suk-yeol |
| Termstart1: | 30 March 2023 |
| Termend1: | 31 December 2023 |
| Predecessor1: | Kim Sung-han |
| Successor1: | Chang Ho-jin |
| Office2: | South Korean Ambassador to the United States |
| President2: | Yoon Suk-yeol |
| Termstart2: | 11 June 2022 |
| Termend2: | 29 March 2023 |
| Predecessor2: | Lee Soo-hyuck |
| Successor2: | Cho Hyun-dong |
Cho Tae-yong (; born 29 August 1956) is a South Korean career diplomat with over three decades of experience who served as South Korea's National Security Advisor from March[1] [2] to December of 2023. On January 16, 2024, he was appointed Director of the National Intelligence Service of South Korea.
Cho has extensive experience in a range of high-level diplomatic assignments dealing with the United States and North Korea. In November 2016, he represented South Korea in talks with Michael Flynn and other members of then-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy team on North Korea.[3] He and then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken held five rounds of U.S.-South Korea strategic consultations on North Korea between 2015 and 2017.[4] As South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister between 2014 and 2015, he represented South Korea in regular U.S.-South Korea-Japan trilateral talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama.[5]
He is not to be confused with Cho Tae-yul, a similarly named South Korean career diplomat who was South Korea's Second Vice Foreign Minister of Affairs until 2016 and currently serves as the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations.[6]
Cho was born in Seoul in 1956, and received his bachelor's degree in political science from Seoul National University.[7]
Among various other positions, Cho was previously South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2015 and South Korea's Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs from 2013 to 2014. Cho also previously served as the South Korean Ambassador to Australia from 2011 to 2013, Ambassador to Ireland from 2008 to 2009, and Director General of the North American Affairs Bureau of the South Korean Foreign Ministry from 2006 to 2007.
Cho has been working on North Korean affairs since 2004. He was Director General of the South Korean foreign ministry's Task Force on North Korea, and deputy head of the South Korean delegation to the six-party talks in Beijing in 2004.[8] He was named South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs in 2013, and then became Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2014.[9]