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

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

According to the US plan for Gaza, 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 UN envoy to Iraq before being appointed as the UN Mideast peace envoy from 2015-2020.

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........

© The Times of Israel