The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, announced Tuesday that he has chosen the second most senior official in the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to be the UN’s top envoy in Iraq. A UN Information Center’s press release, a copy of which was made available to IRNA on Wednesday, read that Ban had informed the Security Council of his intention to appoint Ad Melkert.

The press release quoted the UN spokesperson Michele Montas as telling reporters, Melkert, who had served as Associate Administrator of UNDP since 2006, will succeed Staffan de Mistura as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq and head of the UN mission in that country (UNAMI).
Montas said that Melkert, 53, brought a unique combination of political experience and economic and development expertise to the role from his work as a government minister and Member of Parliament in the Netherlands and as a senior official at UNDP and the World Bank.