UNITED NATIONS: According to his office, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Roza Otunbayeva, a former president of Kyrgyzstan, as the organization’s next special representative for Afghanistan.
After the country’s then-leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev was driven into exile by a deadly rebellion in April 2010, Otunbayeva was appointed interim president. The following year, once fresh elections were held, she gave up her position.
She was a former government minister and member of parliament who served as the deputy special representative for the previous UN mission in Georgia.
She presently sits on a senior UN council that deals with conflict resolution and prevention. As chief of the UN mission in Afghanistan, where the rights of women and children have been severely restricted since the Taliban’s return to power last year, she succeeds another woman, Canadian Deborah Lyons.
Separately, in response to a recent escalation of hostilities between competing governments, Guterres named Senegalese diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily as the UN’s representative in Libya.
The former Senegalese minister had previously served as the UN’s representative in Central Africa, Madagascar’s special adviser to the secretary-general, and the UN mission in Mali’s deputy special representative.
After unrest shook Tripoli in late July, the UN’s efforts to undertake peace negotiations and prepare for elections have come under renewed pressure.
