Korean-American Professor Victor Cha is to be appointed Asia Director of the U.S. National Security Council.

A government official said Thursday that Prof. Cha will be in charge of issues related to the Korean Peninsula and Japan under senior director Michael Green.

A professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Cha will become the first Korean-American to assume a high U.S. government post that could profoundly affect South Korea-U.S. relations.

Cha, who is an expert on issues related to the Korean Peninsula as well as security, has supported U.S. President George W. Bush's hard line policy on North Korea.

He has maintained a friendship with U.S. Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice since from their days at Stanford, when she was the university provost and he was a researcher at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation.