Panafrican News Agency

Guterres announces intention to appoint Balgarian Nickolay Mladenov as new Special Envoy in Libya

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has informed the Security Council about his intention to appoint the current UN envoy for Middle-East, Nickolay Mladenov, as Special Envoy in Libya after eight months of vacancy of the position following the resignation of Lebanese Ghassan Salamé.

The nomination of Mladenov, candidate proposed by the United-States, as new UN mediator in Libya, comes after Africa, which held the designation of a personality from the continent, dropped the position.

The last Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and chief of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Lebanese Ghassan Salamé, who resigned on 2 March for health reasons, was replaced by his deputy, American Stephanie Williams.

She took over after the holding on 9-15 November of an inter-Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in Tunis, which adopted an action plan for political transition that should lead to general elections on 24 December 2021.

During its extension in mid-September of the mandate of the UN Support Mission in Libya till 15 September 2021, the UN Security Council decided to undertake a redefinition of the position of the position of Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General.  

By virtue of the adopted resolution, the position was divided into two, with a "Special Envoy" in charge of mediation and political negotiations and "a coordinator" with the responsibility of administrative management of the UN mission working under the aegis of the Special Envoy. 

This reform is an initiative of the United-States who showed their opposition to the nomination of the two Representatives of the UN Secretary-General, Algerian Ramtane Lamamra and Ghanaian Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, demanding the reorganization of the position.

Nikolay Mladenov is a Bulgarian politician who occupied several governmental and diplomatic positions within the United-Nations. He was member of the European Parliament between 2007 and 2009, and is member of the European delegation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.

Mladenov was minister of Defence of Bulgaria from July 2009 to January 2010. He also exercised the duties of Bulgarian ministry of foreign affairs from February 2010 to 2013.

He was appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Iraq and chief of the UN assistance mission for Iraq in August 2013 before being appointed Special Coordinator for the peace process in the Middle-East in February 2015.


-0-   PANA     BY/IS/MSA/RA   20Nov2020