Key U.N. Diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi Retiring 
By the Associated Press
December 20, 2005
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Adviser-Retires.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Top U.N. diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi is retiring after more than a decade in hotspots from Afghanistan and Iraq to Haiti and Nepal, the U.N. spokesman announced Tuesday.
The former Algerian foreign minister will leave his post as special adviser to Secretary-General – HYPERLINK https://mail.hudsonny.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/kofi_annan/index.html?inline=nyt-per \o More articles about Kofi Annan. \t _blank Kofi Annan at the end of the year, said the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.
Brahimi, 71, began work at the United Nations in 1994 after serving as Algeria's foreign minister from 1991-93.
In his first U.N. job, he helped oversee elections that brought Nelson Mandela to power. He was then named special representative for Haiti, a post he held until 1996.
Annan picked Brahimi to be his special envoy for Afghanistan in 1997, and the veteran diplomat spent more than two years unsuccessfully trying to get warring factions to sit down together and talk peace.
Annan then put Brahimi in charge of a review of U.N. peace-related operations. The panel's report issued in 2000 -- now known as the Brahimi report -- called for a major overhaul of U.N. peacemaking efforts.
Brahimi later resumed work in Afghanistan after a U.S.-led force ousted the Taliban.
In the last two years, he has focused on peace and security issues around the world. In Iraq, for example, Brahimi played a major role in helping put together the interim government that took power on June 30, 2004.
While Brahimi is highly regarded by many U.N. diplomats, Israel sent a formal protest to Annan in April 2004 after Brahimi described Israeli policy as ''the great poison'' in the Middle East.
Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman called Brahimi's comments ''vitriolic and biased'' and said they heightened concerns about the U.N.'s impartiality in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Brahimi responded that he was reflecting views in the Arab world, and much of the rest of the world.