Julian Harston, of the United Kingdom, has been appointed as the director of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, that office announced on March 2.

In March 2007, Harston was appointed as an adviser to Ban Kimoon, as well as a U.N. special representative and head of the U.N. mission in Western Sahara, where he remained until last week.

Harston, who is also Ban Kimoon's representative in Belgrade, led the U.N. Office in Belgrade from May 2004 to Feb. 2007, and was also the deputy special representative of the U.N. secretary general in the U.N. mission in Bosnia Herzegovina.

He began his service at the U.N. as a political adviser to the special representative of the secretary general in UNPROFOR in 1995 after many years of diplomatic work in the British diplomatic service.

Harston, who was born in 1942 in Kenya, worked for a number of years as a television commentator in Canada.