South Korea appointed former Deputy Trade Minister Ahn Ho-young as its new ambassador to the European Union and Belgium on Monday in a reshuffle that also replaced 19 other ambassadors and four consuls general, the Foreign Ministry said.

Ahn Seong-doo, former deputy chief of the ministry’s South Asian and Pacific affairs bureau, was named to head the embassy in Afghanistan, where South Korea has a team of civilian aid workers to help rebuild the war-torn nation, the ministry said in a statement.

Former South Asian-Pacific affairs chief Choi Jong-moon was appointed as ambassador to Sri Lanka, while former ambassador to El Salvador Oh Dae-sung was appointed to Spain, former ambassador to Hungary Eom Seock-jeong to Sweden and former deputy U.N. ambassador Park Hee-kwon was appointed to Peru, the ministry said.

The other new ambassadors include those to Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Romania, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Kuwait, South Africa and Zimbabwe, according to the ministry.

The announcement came after host nations gave diplomatic consent to the proposed appointments.

The government also appointed four new consuls general in the Chinese cities of Shenyang and Chengdu, the German city of Frankfurt and the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. 

(Yonhap News)