The name of Cabinet Secretary Gershon Avner, a former Israeli Ambassador to Canada, has been mentioned in political circles here as a possible successor to Yosef Tekoah, long-time envoy to the United Nations, who will end his seven-year tour of duty in New York this summer. Tekoah, currently on home leave, is to become president of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev at Beersheba, it was confirmed yesterday.
Officially, the Foreign Ministry says it is pre mature to talk of possible candidates. But privately, officials acknowledge that Avner, as a former president of the “Oxford Union” (the British university’s famous debating club) and a gifted orator, could be the right man for the Job.
The man whom most diplomatic and political observers think is naturally suited for the post, veteran diplomat Mordechai Kidron, a senior advisor to the Foreign Minister and head of the UN Department, has indicated that for personal reasons he must decline it. Avner himself says he knows nothing of rumors linking his name to the UN post.
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