Former German Head of State, Horst Koehler, was on Wednesday appointed UN envoy for Western Sahara.

UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, appointed Koehler to succeed Christopher Ross of the United States who ended his term in the role at the end of April.

Koehler brings more than 35 years of experience to the role, including six years as Germany’s president.

He resigned from the largely ceremonial post of president in 2010 after making controversial comments about the German military’s role in Afghanistan in a newspaper interview.

Prior to that, he worked in international roles as managing director of the IMF in Washington and as president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London.

Koehler was born in 1943 and is married with two children.

(Source: dpa/NAN)