UN Mission in Kosovo | Mission leadership

Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)

"The Special Representative of the Secretary-General as the head of UNMIK, is the highest international civilian official in Kosovo. He will enjoy the maximum civilian executive powers envisaged and vested in him by the Security Council in its resolution 1244 (1999), and will also be the final authority on their interpretation. (Secretary-General in his report on UNMIK, 12 July 1999)

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets with Farid Zarif, his Special Representative and Head of UNMIK (UN Photo/Evan Schneider)

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Farid Zarif

Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG)

Director of Europe and Latin America Division of DPKO since August of 2010, he served as the Chief of Staff and Acting DSRSG with UNMIS in Sudan, and prior to that, as the Chief of Staff of UNAMI in Iraq since January 2004. Following 3 years of service as the UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq since January 1997, he was appointed as Chief and, later, Director in the Office of Iraq Programme at the UN headquarters in New York. He was Chief Elections Officer with UNMIL in Liberia from 1994-96, and served in as Referendum/Elections Coordinator with the UN missions in Eritrea and South Africa in 1993 and 1995, respectively.

In 1991-92, he was the Secretary-General of the Economic Advisory Council, Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Afghanistan. Serving his national governments, he was the Principle Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Afghanistan from 1989-1991, and Deputy Foreign Minister from 1987-1989. Prior to that, Mr. Zarif was Ambassador, Permanent Representative of his country to the United Nations in New York from 1980. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan in 1974 and served in various departments in increasingly responsible positions, as well as Charge d’Affaires in Havana.

He has studied Law, Diplomacy and International Relations at the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Kabul University, the Afghan Institute of Diplomacy and Oxford University. He is married with two sons.

Robert E.Sorenson
Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (DSRSG)

Ambassador

Jean-Claude Schlumberger
Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (DSRSG)

Robert E. Sorenson assumed his duties as UNMIK’s Chief of Staff on

March 27, 2009, and serves as the Special Representative of the

Secretary General’s deputy.

A career U.S. diplomat, Mr. Sorenson left U.S. government service

in 2007 following his assignment as Chief of Mission to

the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (2004-2007). Mr. Sorenson has had extensive service in the Balkan region serving as U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Pristina (2003-4) and Consul General in

Belgrade (1993-96). In addition, Mr. Sorenson served with

the UN Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES)

as media and political advisor (1997-8) and as an international monitor

with the follow-on OSCE Mission in Vukovar (1998).

As part of his foreign service, he has served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Reyjavik, Iceland (1998-2001) and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (2001-2003).

In addition to his service in Washington, D.C. , Mr. Sorenson’s other assignments included serving as Country Coordinator for consular and refugee affairs in Ankara, Turkey (1988-92), and consular officer in Curacao (1985-87),

Amsterdam, (1979-82) and Tehran, Iran (1978-79).

Mr. Sorenson holds a M.A. degree from the U.S. Naval War College in

National Security and Strategic Studies (1997), a M.A. degree in

political science from Columbia University (1976) and B.A. degree

in East Asian Political Studies from Boston University (1974).

Mr. Sorenson is married and has a daughter and a son.

Jean-Claude Schlumberger of France took up his post as the Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo on 1 October 2012.

A career diplomat, he comes to the OSCE from Skopje, where he served as Ambassador of France from 2009 to 2012.

Ambassador Schlumberger was also posted to Germany, Algeria, the United States, Laos and Haiti. From 2006 to 2009, he was assigned to the Inspectorate-General of the Foreign Ministry.

He held senior positions in the Ministry’s department responsible for the United Nations and other international organizations and was Chief of Staff for Foreign Ministers Hervé de Charette in 1996 and Alain Juppé in 1993.

Camille Curtis

Chief of Mission Support

Leonid Markaryan

Head of Office of Community Support and Facilitation

Jolyon Naegele

Political Director

Ernst U Tschoepke

Legal Affairs Director

Avadhesh B. Mathur

UNMIK Regional Representative Mitrovice/Mitrovica

Ms Camille Curtis who currently holds the office of the Chief of Mission Support, UNMIK has several years of management

and administrative experience in

government, the private sector, peace keeping, peace building and special political missions having worked with DPKO/DFS in the United Nations Transitional Administrations for East Timor, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the United Nations Mission in Sudan, the United Nations Mission in Darfur and the United Nations Special Coordinator's office (UNSCO). Ms Curtis holds a Masters Degree

in Business Administration.

Leonid Liebknecht Markaryan has served in different capacities in UNMIK since February 2000, starting as Head of Victims Recovery and Identification Unit, an later on as Deputy

KPC Coordinator, Deputy Director of Civil Administration and Director of the Kosovo Property Agency. In the past, L. Markaryan held a number of senior positions in both the state and public bodies

of the Russian Federation, including diplomatic service. His last employment before joining UNMIK was with the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation as State Councilor and International Adviser . Mr. Markaryan holds an M.A. degree in Foreign Languages and International Relations from the Military Academy of Foreign Languages of the USSR. He is married with four children.

Jolyon Naegele is a native of New York City and joined UNMIK's Office of Political Affairs in 2003. He previously worked as a staff correspondent covering Eastern and Southeastern Europe for RFE/RL Inc. 1996-2003, VOA 1984-1994 and Business International (1980-1984). He began reporting regularly from Yugoslavia, including Kosovo from the mid-1980s, covered the break-up of Yugoslavia from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He covered the 1999 Kosovo conflict from Albania and the aftermath from Kosovo. He also covered the conflicts in Serbia's Presevo Valley and in FYR Macedonia in 2000-2001. Mr. Naegele received an MA in international relations from SAIS/JHU in 1978 and a BA in international relations from CCNY.

Ernst U Tschoepke, a Hong Kong citizen, who, before joining UNMIK

in 2001 as Head of Legal Services in Pillar-IV, has worked as law draftsman in various African SADC member states and as commercial lawyer in South East Asia, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. He is the principle drafter of most of Kosovo’s privatization legislation and has joined the UNMIK Office of Legal Affairs in 2003. Since 2008 he is heading this Office, now largely engaged in UNMIK legal legacy issues and in providing the implementation in Kosovo of the

legal construct for the UN’s status neutral stance on Kosovo's status.

Mr Avadhesh B. Mathur was appointed UNMIK Head of Office, Mitrovice/Miroica in May 2012. Prior to joining UNMIK he was Secretary to Government of India, in charge of various portfolios including the security of the Prime Minister. During his career of 37 years in Indian civil service, Mr. Mathur served in various senior positions in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India. While serving in the Cabinet Secretariat, he supervised the work relating to India’s relationship with neighbouring countries, e.g. Bangladesh, Sir Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan etc.
Mr. Mathur has also served in the Embassy of India in Brussels (1992-96) and in High Commission of India in Pakistan (1996-2000). Mr. Mathur also served in the north-eastern part of India where he dealt with various ethnic/insurgent groups and was successful in bringing peace to some of the troubled regions of the area. Mr. Mathur holds post-graduate degrees in Physics and History. Mr. Mathur is married with two children.

Former UNMIK SRSGs