United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters):

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a new top envoy for Haiti on Friday in shuffling posts of two veteran officials in the U.N. peacekeeping department.

Hedi Annabi, a Tunisian, will go to Haiti to head the U.N. mission there. Annabi, 63, who joined the world body in 1981, is currently the U.N. assistant secretary general in the peacekeeping department in charge of operations, including the new joint United Nations-African Union force for Darfur.

Ban had put Annabi on a list in February of U.N. officials who had been with the organisation for many years and should retire but he did not name a replacement.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of peacekeeping, fought to keep Annabi as long as feasible, U.N. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Annabi swaps jobs with Edmond Mullet of Guatemala, who is now head of the Haiti mission that includes 7,200 troops and 1,500 police to help keep the peace in the Caribbean nation.

Mullet, a lawyer and former journalist, was a lawmaker for 12 years in Guatemala and served as ambassador to the European Union and the United States.

At the same time, Ban gave a promotion to Dimitri Titov of Russia, the head of the Africa peacekeeping division, which handles 80 per cent of the more than 100,000 military and civilian personnel fielded around the world in eight missions. That division will be split into two units.

Titov was appointed assistant secretary-general for the rule of law and security sector reform in the peacekeeping department, making him the highest-ranking Russian at New York headquarters.