UN chooses former Dutch defense minister to lead Iraq mission

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The United Nations announced on Friday that it had appointed a former Dutch defense minister to be its next envoy to Iraq.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, also a former member of both the Dutch and European parliaments, will begin her duties as Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) on an as-of-yet unspecified date.

According to a posting on UNAMI's Twitter page, "UN Secretary-General has appointed Ms. Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert as his Special Representative for #Iraq & Head of UNAMI. Current SRSG Ján Kubiš continues to serve as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative &Head of UNAMI until later in the year."

She was named as "the most influential woman in the Netherlands" in 2015 by a prominent Dutch magazine and has been seen as a potential candidate for the mayor of Amsterdam. In 2017, she resigned her post as defense minister following the release of a report about a 2016 incident which killed two soldiers in a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali.

Her appointment marks the second UN Special Representative for Iraq to hail from the Netherlands, the first being Ad Melkert, who held the title between 2009 and 2011.

Hennis-Plasschaert replaces Ján Kubiš, also a former minister, who has led the UN's Iraq mission since February 2015. He previously served as Slovakia's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Secretary General of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

On Aug. 17th, the UN commemorated the 15th anniversary of the death of its first Special Representative in Iraq, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, who perished along with over 20 others when a truck bomber targetted the international body's headquarters in Baghdad.  

Aside from the monumental task of coordinating humanitarian and development efforts in Iraq, UNAMI's mandate "is to advise and assist the Government and people of Iraq on a number of issues. This includes advancing inclusive political dialogue and national reconciliation, assisting in the electoral process and in the planning for a national census, facilitating regional dialogue between Iraq and its neighbours, and promoting the protection of human rights and judicial and legal reforms."