Trump pick for Gaza board Nickolay Mladenov frequently worked to ease Mideast tensions

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Nickolay Mladenov, the man chosen to serve as director-general for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace in Gaza, is a Bulgarian politician and former U.N. envoy to the Middle East who frequently worked to ease tensions between Israel and Hamas.

His appointment — announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and confirmed by a U.S. official — makes him the top official in an unproven international body tasked with governing the Gaza Strip under the next phase of a fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire after two years of war.

According to the ceasefire agreement, the authority — to be chaired by Trump — is supposed to supervise a new technocratic Palestinian government, the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, additional pullbacks of Israeli troops and reconstruction.

The 53-year-old Mladenov has long been involved in Middle Eastern politics with solid expertise in the region’s dynamic developments.

He is a former Bulgarian defense and foreign minister who served as the U.N. envoy to Iraq before being appointed as the U.N. Mideast peace envoy from 2015-2020.

Contributions to peace

Milen Keremedchiev, a former diplomat and expert on Middle East politics, said Mladenov’s appointment is the result of his significant contributions to peace, adding that he had earned the trust of both Israel and the Palestinians.

“Bulgaria has long been perceived as a moderate country, one that has avoided extremes in this particularly acute conflict,” Keremedchiev said, adding that during his tenure as foreign minister, Mladenov consistently maintained a carefully balanced approach to the Middle East.

“This approach was positively received by both the Arab world and the State of Israel. Bulgaria’s position has traditionally been one of balance, and he was steadfast in preserving that stance,” he told the AP in an interview in Sofia.

Retired Israeli diplomat Alon Bar, who served as the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for the U.N. and international organizations during Mladenov’s tenure, said it was a “distinct pleasure” working with him.

Bar said that serving as a U.N. envoy is a difficult task given Israel’s long history of rocky relations with the world body, but that Mladenov managed to gain Israel’s confidence.

“He was able to create a relationship of trust with the political echelon in Israel, including Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he said. “At the same time, there was a lot of confidence he created on the Palestinian side.”

Mladenov served as the top U.N. envoy in Iraq from 2013 to 2015, before then-U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed him as the organization’s top Mideast envoy. During that job, he helped to defuse cross-border violence between Israel and Hamas and keep up the idea of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Middle East efforts

In Bulgaria, Mladenov held the position of defense minister for a year, before serving as foreign minister from 2010 to 2013, during the uprisings in the Middle East known as the Arab Spring when Syria also descended into civil war.

In 2012, he hosted in Bulgaria the first-ever meeting of the Syrian opposition, which brought together representatives of various factions that oppose Bashar Assad’s government. The forum ended with a joint declaration that marked the start of a structured dialogue between the various opposition groups.

In the early years of his political career, Mladenov founded the European Institute in Sofia and was its director until 2001. That same year, he was elected a member of the National Assembly on the ticket of the center-right Union of Democratic Forces.

In 2007, Mladenov was elected a member of the European Parliament, where he met his wife, Gergana, the mother of their three children.

As a sign of recognition for his peace efforts in the Middle East, he received in February 2021 the Grand Star of the Order of Jerusalem, awarded by the Palestinian president to officials, envoys, and prominent figures in recognition of their service.

Currently, Mladenov is based in the UAE, where he was appointed to run the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy.

The diplomat holds master’s degrees in War Studies from King’s College London and International Relations from the University of National and World Economy in Sofia.

Bar, the Israeli diplomat, said Mladenov in his diplomacy was focused “not only on declarations and statements, but on trying to connect and trying to find bridges and trying to see where are the places where the positions of Israel, the Palestinians could meet.”

He said these skills would serve him well in his newest position.

“I think it is good news that he’s coming back to this place for this very difficult task,” he said. “I think he’s the right man for the job.”

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Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed reporting.