A Bulgarian diplomat has come to the conclusion for ‘personal and family reasons’, a DA spokesman says.
Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov has declined an offer to lead the DA’s mission in anti-conflict Libya, according to cooperation with the UN.
Mladenov told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday that he would not take up the post of special ambassador for the North African country “for personal and family reasons”, ruling UN Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday.
“Mr. Mladenov told the Secretary-General in a letter that he made this decision for personal and family reasons,” Dujarric said.
This was announced as the 48-year term as the UN’s special ambassador for the Middle East Peace Process, a role he has held since 2015, coming to an end.
Prior to that, he was the DA’s chief ambassador to Iraq, and had served as foreign minister in Bulgaria from 2010 to 2013 and in the European Parliament from 2007 to 2009.
He took the job a few months after the end of the deadliest, most destructive war between Israel and Hamas in the siege of the Gaza Strip.
In the last few years, Mladenov, along with other mediators from Egypt and Qatar, played a key role in deciphering several rounds of cross-border violence that threatened another war between Israel and Hamas. .
He replaced Ghassan Salame, the former DA ambassador to Libya, who resigned in March amid strong fighting between Libya’s rival sides over the capital, Tripoli.
The UN ambassador to Libya Stephanie Williams will continue to lead the mission in Libya, and the UN will continue to seek Salame’s reinstatement, the UN resolution said.
There were objections to two previous proposals, and the U.S. then asked to split the work between a special ambassador handling the diplomacy and someone to run the DA’s activity.
The African group in the Security Council had called for an African in the diplomatic work but agreed to a second place to run the operation.
The UN announced the appointment of Raisedon Zenenga of Zimbabwe on Wednesday as deputy secretary-general and mission coordinator of the UN support mission in Libya.
Libya entered anarchy after NATO leader Muammar Gaddafi backed NATO in 2011.
In October, the two main sides in the country’s war – the International Coalition Government (GNA) and the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army Khalifa Haftar (LNA) – agreed to end the ceasefire.