1980s, I think I also need to do an awful lot of listening to people to understand what has been going on lately." Hill served as the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia from 1996 to 1999, Special Envoy to Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, Ambassador to Poland from 2000 to 2004, and ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2004 to 2005 before being appointed as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. While on a fellowship with the American Political Science Association, Hill served as a member of the staff of Congressman Stephen Solarz. In November 2006 President George W. Bush nominated Hill for the grade of career minister, the second-highest rank for career diplomats. The elite title is one step below career ambassador. Bosnia peace settlement Hill was part of the team that negotiated the Bosnia peace settlement. While working on Balkan issues, Hill worked closely with Richard Holbrooke, serving as his deputy at the Dayton Peace Talks in 1995. Holbrooke described Hill as "brilliant, fearless and argumentative" in his book on the Dayton negotiations and said that Hill manages to be both "very cool and very passionate." The combination, Holbrooke said, enhances Hill's "extremely good negotiating skills." Hill said the negotiations with the Bosnians, Serbs and Croats were successful because all the parties "were all ready to settle.' Hill had a diplomatic failure as special envoy to Kosovo "because the Serbs were not ready to relinquish their stranglehold on Kosovo, so we ended up in a NATO bombing campaign." "Like a lot of things in life: you've got to do everything you can do" Hill said, to ensure "that you have left no stone unturned, that you have really tried." Negotiations with North Korea On February 14, 2005, Hill was named as the Head of the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. In the first visit to North Korea by a senior American official in over five years, Hill flew into Pyongyang on June 21, 2007 for a two-day visit where he was warmly greeted by Ri Gun, the North's deputy nuclear negotiator at the airport. "We want to get the six-party process moving", Mr. Hill said. "We hope that we can make up for some of the time that we lost this spring, and so I'm looking forward to good discussions about that." The visit had