UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed the first woman to command a United Nations peacekeeping force — a Norwegian general who has served in Lebanon, the first Gulf War, Bosnia and Afghanistan.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced Monday that Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund will replace Chinese Maj. Gen. Chao Liu on Aug. 13 as commander of about 1,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Cyprus, which has been split into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north since 1974.
Lund tells the Associated Press that she's proud to crack the glass ceiling in U.N. peacekeeping.
She says "it's time, and I think it's important that other women see that it's possible also in the U.N. system to get up in the military hierarchy to become a force commander."