UAE Minister of State and Envoy to the UN and EU Lana Nusseibeh announced Wednesday her candidacy for UN secretary-general following her formal nomination by the United Arab Emirates.
“I have spent much of my professional life working in and around the United Nations, and I have seen first-hand what determined diplomacy can achieve,” Nusseibeh said in a statement.
“But I have also seen the cost when diplomacy falls short. When the distance between what we promise and what we deliver grows, trust erodes, and so does our ability to act,” she added.
Nusseibeh has taken a leave of absence from her post in the UAE government to focus on her candidacy.
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan submitted the nomination in a letter to the presidents of the UN General Assembly and Security Council, according to media reports.
The nomination comes after six rounds of voting in the Security Council failed to produce a candidate acceptable to all five permanent members – the US, Russia, China, the UK and France. The council held its latest straw poll on Oct. 16 as part of the process to select a successor to Antonio Guterres, whose second term ends on Dec. 31.