Secretary-General Appoints Petko Draganov of Bulgaria Special Representative, Head of United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Petko Draganov of Bulgaria as his Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Mr. Draganov succeeds Miroslav Jenča of Slovakia who was recently appointed Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs.  The Secretary-General is grateful to Mr. Jenča for his vision and leadership at the helm of UNRCCA since its inception.

Mr. Draganov currently serves as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), a position he has held since 2009.  He was previously the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Bulgaria to the United Nations Office and the other International Organizations in Geneva (2005-2009, 1998‑2001) and the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria (2001-2005), serving also as Special Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to the Republic of Moldova and Alternate Representative of Bulgaria to the United Nations Security Council.

From 1993 to 1998, Mr. Draganov was Bulgaria’s Ambassador to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland.  He also served as Chargé d’Affairs of the Bulgarian Embassy in Zimbabwe, worked at the West African Desk at the African Department of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was Attaché at the Bulgarian Embassy in Ghana.

Mr. Draganov holds a Master of Arts in International Law from Moscow Institute for International Relations.  In addition to Bulgarian, he speaks English, French and Russian.

__________

*     This supersedes Press Release SG/A/1175-BIO/4064-TAD/2047 of 20 February 2009.