UNIS/BIO/844
6 May 2008

Secretary-General Appoints Miroslav Jenča of Slovakia Special Representative, Head of United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia

VIENNA, 6 May (UN Information Service) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Miroslav Jenča of Slovakia as his Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Mr. Jenča is currently Director of the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Slovakia.  He recently served as Ambassador and Head of Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Centre in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.  He has served as Ambassador and Representative of Slovakia to the Political and Security Committee of the European Union and as Ambassador of Slovakia to Mexico, Venezuela and Columbia.  He has held a number of positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia, including Head of the Division for Development Assistance and Cross-Border Cooperation and Deputy Political Director and Director of the Department for European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries.

Mr. Jenča has served in diplomatic missions for his native Slovakia as Counsellor, Chargé d'Affaires, in Ireland, and as Press Secretary in Mexico.  He holds a Doctor of Law degree from Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.  He has studied foreign trade at the University of Economics in Bratislava, diplomacy and international relations at Moscow State Institute of International Relations and diplomacy at Stanford University.  He is fluent in English, Russian, Spanish and French.

Born in 1965 in Krompachy, Slovakia, he is married with two children.

* *** *