Suh Hoon

Overview

Education

• BA in Education, Seoul National University
• Johns Hopkins University Graduate School of International Politics
• Dongguk University Graduate School of North Korean Studies

  Career

• 1996: Representative of Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization
• February 2004: Chief of information security office of National Security Council
• December 2004: Chief Strategy Officer of the National Intelligence Service
• November 2006: The third deputy director of the National Intelligence Service Visiting Professor, Department of North Korean Studies, Ewha Womans University
• June 2017: Director of the 13th National Intelligence Service of South Korea
• July 2020: Director of National Security Office

  Political activity

• In March 2018, Suh visited Pyongyang, North Korea for discussing the required steps to denuclearization of North Korea
• Suh briefed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and foreign minister the same month after his Pyongyang visit.
• Suh Hoon played a critical role in historical April 2018 inter-Korean summit. He also helped establish two previous first and second inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007, is seen as the country’s prime expert on the subject with North Korea. He is known as the South Korean who met with the previous North Korean leader Kim Jong-il the most.
• On April 2018, Suh Hoon visited North Korea as a South Korean envoy for organising the historic inter-Korean summit. He entered North Korea with a high-level delegation of South Korean officials.