UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed on Tuesday the Bulgarian Petko Draganov as his Special Representative and Head of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Draganov succeeds the Slovak Miroslav Jenca, who was recently appointed as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, the site of UNRCCA informs.

Ban Ki-moon expressed his gratitude to Jenca for his vision and leadership as head of the UNRCCA since the centre was established in 2007.

Draganov has been serving as Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) since 2009.

On two occasions he served as Bulgaria's Permanent Representative to the UN Office and other international organisations in Vienna in the periods 1998-2001 and 2005-2009.

Between 2001 and 2005 he was the Bulgaria's First Deputy Foreign Minister serving also as Special Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office of OSCE to Moldova and Alternate Representative of Bulgaria to the UN Security Council.

From 1993 to 1998 Draganov was Bulgarian Ambassador to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland.

He had also been Charge d'Affairs of the Bulgarian Embassy in Zimbabwe, worked at the West African Desk at the African Department of the Foreign Ministry and served as Attache at the Bulgarian Embassy in Ghana.

Draganov holds MA degree in International Law from the Moscow Institute of International Relations and besides his mother tongue he also speaks English, French and Russian.

UNRCCA is tasked with assisting and supporting the governments of the five Central Asian states in building their conflict prevention capacities.

It promotes enhanced dialogue, confidence building measures and genuine partnership in order to respond to existing threats and emerging challenges in Central Asia.