Former Australian foreign minister named UN envoy on Myanmar

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has appointed former Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop as his special envoy for Myanmar, a United Nations spokesperson said on Friday, as the country faces renewed violence.

Bishop, who was Australian foreign minister from 2013 to 2018, replaces Singaporean diplomat Noeleen Heyzer, who stepped down from the role in June last year.

Myanmar has been in crisis since the army took power from Aung Suu Kyi's elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.

The military is facing its biggest challenge since first taking power in the former British colony in 1962, fighting on multiple fronts to contain uprisings in several parts of the country and stabilize an economy that has wilted since the coup.

Myanmar is locked in a civil war between the military on one side and, on the other, a loose alliance of ethnic minority rebels and an armed resistance movement spawned out of the junta's bloody crackdown on anti-coup protests.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, editing by David Ljunggren and Richard Chang)