UN chief appoints Singaporean sociologist Noeleen Heyzer as new Myanmar special envoy

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres introduced on Monday (Oct 25) that he had named Singaporean sociologist Noeleen Heyzer as the new special envoy to Myanmar.

She will exchange Christine Schraner Burgener of Switzerland.

Heyzer, 73, has held a number of senior positions on the United Nations, particularly between 2007 and 2014 as the pinnacle of an financial and social fee for Asia and the Pacific. Between 2013 and 2015, she served as special advisor for East Timor.

As a part of her duties on the Economic and Social Commission, Heyzer labored carefully with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as nicely as with Myanmar authorities on the event and discount of poverty.

Since the Feb 1 coup in Myanmar that put an finish to a ten-year democratic interval, the United Nations and ASEAN have unsuccessfully urged the army junta to relaunch a political dialogue and liberate civilian officers arrested throughout the putsch.

Neither Burgener, who's leaving her UN duties after three and a half years to enter the Swiss authorities, nor Brunei's deputy international minister Erywan Yusof - appointed ASEAN emissary in August - has been in a position to go to Myanmar, the place they hoped to fulfill with civilians such as former civilian chief Aung San Suu Kyi.