Obama names top diplomats for Iraq, Afghanistan

President Obama has turned to
veteran diplomats to represent the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, as
well as to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the White House announced
Tuesday.

Obama will call on Ambassador
Christopher Hill to serve as the country’s top diplomat in Iraq, and Lt. Gen.
Karl Eikenberry as the top envoy to Afghanistan.

{mosads}Hill, currently the top State
Department official for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, most recently headed
the U.S. delegation in six-party talks aimed at stopping North Korea from
achieving a nuclear weapon. He has also served stints in Poland, Macedonia and
Kosovo, and had been widely mentioned for the top post in Iraq before his
appointment.

Eikenberry is the deputy chairman of
NATO after having served atop the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan.
Eikenberry held several top posts in the war-torn country, as well as positions
in the U.S. embassy in China and throughout the military.

On Tuesday, Obama also tapped Ivo
Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as the next permanent
representative to NATO.

Alexander Vershbow, a former
ambassador to South Korea, will stand before the Senate as assistant secretary
of Defense for international security affairs, and Richard Verma, a one-time
senior national security adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.),
is Obama’s choice to head the State Department’s legislative affairs bureau.

All five positions are subject to
Senate confirmation.