São Paulo – Diplomat Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, from Qatar, was elected the new president of the UN Assembly General. He will be inaugurated in September, in the organisation’s 66th session, in New York, replacing Swiss Joseph Deiss. This information was disclosed on Monday (27) on the United Nations site in Brazil.
According to the site, Nasser was unanimously chosen last week. The diplomat has been the permanent representative of Qatar to that the UN since 1998. He said, on the site, that he will be inaugurated at a moment of “enormous political, social, economic and environmental challenges”.
“Not a month goes by in which we do not hear about some natural disaster, or a disaster caused by man, and the subsequent food, health, safety or education crisis, sure to follow,” said the diplomat, according to the UN site. At the same time, there are also people who live under occupation and oppression, seeking liberty and dignity,” he pointed out.
Nasser proposed, always according to the UN site, that the “part of mediation in the resolution of conflicts through peaceful means” should be the opening theme of the next session of the Assembly General. In recent years, Qatar has worked on mediating conflicts in the Middle East and Africa.
He also said he intends to work through international consensus regarding matters like hunger, poverty, terrorism and climate change.
Figures disclosed by the UN show that Nasser began his diplomatic career in 1972 as an attaché at the embassy of Qatar in Beirut, Lebanon. He also operated at his country’s diplomatic representation in Pakistan and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and was ambassador to Jordan. The diplomat is 57 years of age, is married and has one child.
*Translated by Mark Ament
