UNITED NATIONS, March 7: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed former Jordanian foreign minister Abdelilah Al-Khatib as his special envoy to Libya, a UN spokesman announced here.

The envoy is “to undertake urgent consultations with the authorities in Tripoli and in the region on the immediate humanitarian situation as well as the wider dimensions of the crisis”, the statement said.

Al-Khatib “will come to New York in the next few days before taking up his responsibilities in the region,” the statement said.