Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Jan Kubis Appointed New U.N. Envoy to Libya


Sat 16 Jan 2021 | 09:43 AM
Ahmad El-Assasy

The United Nations Security Council approved on Friday the appointment of Jan Kubis as the U.N. Libya envoy, according to RT.

The United Nations Security Council approved the appointment of Jan Kubis as the U.N. Libya envoy, diplomats told Reuters.

The appointment of the veteran diplomat Kubis came, nearly a year after the last mediator stepped down.

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that he had nominated Slovakian diplomat Jan Kubis as his envoy in Libya, according to a letter to the U.N. Security Council.

According to the letter, in case of the approval of the 15-member council on Friday evening, Kubis will succeed Ghassan Salame, who quit the role in March last year due to stress. Salame’s deputy Stephanie Williams has been acting Libya envoy.

Kubis, a former Slovakian foreign minister, is currently the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon. He has also served as the U.N. special envoy in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In December, the Security Council approved a plan by Guterres’ to name Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov to the Libya role. A week later, Mladenov said he could not take up the position due to “personal and family reasons.”

Libya descended into chaos after the NATO-backed overthrow of leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. In October, the two major sides in the country’s war – the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) and Khalifa Haftar’s eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) – agreed on a ceasefire.

Haftar is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia, while the government is backed by Turkey.