UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed former Kyrgyzstan President Rosa Otunbayeva as the new UN envoy to Afghanistan, her office announced on Friday (September 2).
Rosa Otunbayeva became interim president of her country in April 2010 after a bloody uprising forced President Kurmanbek Bakiev into exile. She handed over power the following year after the organization of new elections. A former member of her country’s parliament and former minister, she also served as deputy special representative of the former UN mission in Georgia. She is currently a member of the UN High Level Council on Mediation and Conflict Prevention.
She succeeds another woman, Canadian Deborah Lyons, to lead the UN mission in this country where the rights of women and girls have been drastically reduced since the Taliban returned to power a year ago.