Elizabeth Spehar will replace Lisa Butteinheim as the UN Secretary-General`s Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP).

Spehar, director of the Policy and Mediation Division at the UN headquarters, is expected to undertake her new duties in mid March as Butteinheim will be named deputy Head of Department of Field Support at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Spehar had served in the Europe Department at the UN Secretariat from 2009-1015. From 2007 she was head of the Europe and America Department. She has visited Cyprus on a number of occasions and has extensive experience in participating in meetings on Cyprus in the New York.

Buttenheim was appointed Special Representative in 2010. (CNA)