The former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop has been appointed the United Nations secretary general António Guterres’ special envoy on Myanmar, the world body has said.
Bishop, the Australian National University’s chancellor, will take up the UN role that has been vacant since June last year, when Singaporean diplomat Noeleen Heyzer stepped down.
The UN said in a statement that Bishop had “extensive policy, legal and senior management experience”.
Myanmar has been in crisis since the army took power from Aung Suu Kyi’s elected government on 1 February 2021.
The country is locked in a civil war between the military on one side and, on the other, a loose alliance of ethnic minority rebels and an armed resistance movement spawned out of the junta’s crackdown on anti-coup protests.
Bishop was Australia’s foreign minister from 2013 to 2018 under prime ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison.
She was deputy leader of the Liberal party from 2007 to 2018, before retiring from politics in April 2019.
Bishop became chancellor of ANU in January 2020.
With Reuters
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