United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has confirmed veteran Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan De Mistura as the next UN envoy on Syria.

Sixty seven-year-old De Mistura becomes the third man to hold the position after the resignations of Kofi Annan and his successor Lakhdar Brahimi.

Brahimi resigned in May this year and Annan in August of 2012 after both failed to broker a ceasefire in the country, the absence of which has seen Syria descend into further conflict, with more than 160 000 killed and millions internally displaced or living as refugees.

De Mistura will not be a Joint Envoy for both the Arab league and the UN, as was the case with his predecessors, and will report only to the UN Secretary General.

De Mistura has a decade’s long relationship with the UN, having worked as top envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq and speaks seven languages including some Arabic.