The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has appointed a new envoy to Libya to replace Martin Kobler, according to media sources.

The sources said Guterres appointed Ghassan Salame - the former Lebanese Minister of Culture from 2000 to 2003 - to be the new Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL.)

Salame, as it were, will be the sixth envoy to be sent to Libya since after the revolution of 2011.

The German envoy, Martin Kobler, was picked for the position in November 2015 to succeed the Spanish UN envoy Bernardino León, who was the fourth envoy succeeding Lebanese Tariq Metri (2012-2014), British Ian Martin (2011-2012) and Jordanian Abdelilah al-Khatib who was the first UN envoy to be sent to Libya in 2011.