UN Secretary-General appoints Russian as his Special Representative for the Sahara, Head of MINURSO

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced Friday the appointment of Alexander Ivanko of the Russian Federation as his new Special Representative for the Sahara and Head of the MINURSO.

He succeeds Colin Stewart of Canada, whose mandate ends on October 31, 2021.

Mr. Ivanko, who has served as Chief of Staff of MINURSO since 2009, brings to the position more than 30 years of experience in international affairs, peacekeeping and journalism.

He previously served as Director of Public Information for the UN Mission in Kosovo (2006-2009) and as the UN Spokesperson in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1994-1998).

Mr. Ivanko began his career in journalism, working as a correspondent in Afghanistan and the United States for a Russian newspaper. He was also Senior Adviser to the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) between 1998 and 2005.

He holds a master’s degree with honors in Journalism from the Moscow State University and is fluent in Russian and English.

Alexander Ivanko’s new role as Special Representative and head of MINURSO will see him take charge of the local peacekeeping mission, which has been in place since 1991. After nearly three decades of peace, the local UN mission in 2020 faced sudden renewed tensions after the Polisario militia launched a blockade of the Guerguarat crossing point between Morocco and Mauritania.

This appointment comes as the Sahara talks are at a standstill since the two round-table meetings held in Geneva more than two years ago, while no new UN envoy for the Sahara has been appointed by the UN Secretary General since the resignation of German Horst Köhler in May 2019 for “health reasons”.

It is worth noting that several candidates have been proposed by the UN Chief in replacement of Köhler but all his picks have been rejected by the Polisario and Algeria.