United Nations: Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, the next secretary general of the United Nations, has pledged to be a decisive leader and cautioned those who call him low-key not to mistake him for a pushover.
"I may look low-key or [be] soft-spoken, but that does not mean that I lack leadership or commitment," Mr Ban said in his first formal interview after his appointment by acclamation on Friday by the 192-member general assembly.
Modesty and humility were considered virtues by Asians, he said, but that should not be misunderstood.
"I take decisive decisions whenever it is necessary," he said when asked about published reports that his style made him an uncompelling choice for the job.
Mr Ban, who is South Korea's foreign minister, comfortably beat six rivals to win the UN Security Council's nomination to succeed Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian who has led the world body since 1997.
Only the second Asian to head the UN, Mr Ban will take over on January 1st, but he said that he wanted to start work on the transition as soon as possible.
An aide said that Mr Ban could move to New York as early as next month.
Mr Ban made clear that he would travel extensively, delegating much of the day-to-day running of the 9,000-strong UN bureaucracy to a deputy.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has said Mr Annan's successor should focus more on managing than on diplomacy, a view Mr Ban delicately contradicted. "The administrative burden of the secretary general is too much," he said. "I will try to balance my work as a political leader as well as an administrative leader."
Mr Ban will start his five-year term in what Mr Annan has called the world's most impossible job with a daunting agenda which stretches from the threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism to reform of the UN itself.
Mr Ban sidestepped questions about future responses to North Korea's nuclear weapons test, such as whether he would be ready to visit Pyongyang early next year to try to help defuse tension.
On Saturday, the 15-member security council voted on a resolution, backed by Mr Ban, imposing economic and arms sanctions on North Korea in response to last Monday's underground nuclear test.
As South Korean foreign minister, Mr Ban has been closely involved in his country's dealings with North Korea and in international efforts to settle the nuclear crisis with the communist government in Pyongyang.
Mr Ban declined to discuss possible senior-level changes at the world body, saying only that he would ensure that his choices were up to the job.
He mapped out a businesslike approach to reform, saying that while it would be difficult to shrink the UN and its various agencies, they had to work at full steam.
"We need to find out the comparative, competitive edge of each and every agency," he said.
"It is necessary to maximise the strength and minimise the redundancy . . . We need to use already limited resources in a more effective, efficient way."
A career diplomat who graduated at the top of his class in international relations from Seoul National University, Mr Ban has served three times at his country's UN mission in New York.
His most recent tour was as chief of staff to the South Korean president of the general assembly which opened a day after the September 11th attacks in 2001.
South Korean and other diplomats who have worked with him describe him as a skilled mediator and manager who is popular with staff and tirelessly hard-working.
Mr Ban was born to a farming family in 1944 in the town of Chungju and is married to a woman he met at high school. They have two daughters and one son.
In an acceptance speech delivered in English and French, he recalled being chosen by his school at the age of 12 to read out a message to the UN asking for help for the Hungarian people during the 1956 uprising.
"I hardly understood the deeper meaning of the message. But I knew that the UN was there for help in times of need," he said.
He had dreamed of being a diplomat since he was a boy, he said, but he had not imagined that he could one day be UN secretary general until after he became foreign minister.
"Now I have realised my dream," he said.
- (Reuters)