BRUSSELS, 30/06/06 - The Dutch diplomat Daan Everts, 65, is to lead the NATO political and diplomatic mission in Afghanistan. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced his appointment yesterday.

Everts will be the leader of the political dialogue between NATO, the United Nations, the peacekeeping force ISAF and the Afghan authorities. He will take office in August in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Everts succeeds the former Turkish Foreign Minister and former Turkish parliamentary speaker Hikmet Cetin.

Everts studied socio-economic science in Groningen, India and the United States before starting work for the Foreign Ministry. Before that he had several jobs with the UN and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in Kosovo and elsewhere. Since 2004, he has been the Netherlands' ambassador to OSCE.