Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday appointed veteran British foreign correspondent Martin Nesirky, who has served as media chief for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for the past three years, as the new U.N. spokesman.

He will replace Michele Montas of Haiti, who has been Ban's spokeswoman since he became U.N. chief on Jan. 1, 2007. She is retiring on Nov. 30.

Nesirky spent more than two decades working for the Reuters news agency as a correspondent in the Balkans, Berlin, Moscow, The Hague and Seoul and as a senior editor in London handling global political news. In his current job, he has been spokesman and head of press and public information for the 56-nation OSCE, based in Vienna.

Richard Grenell, a spokesman for four U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. from 2001-2008, said: "Balancing the needs of hundreds of journalists from organizations ranging from Fox News to Al-Jazeera, 192 competing countries, and a secretary-general who needs a media profile in order to accomplish his priority issues will be a challenging and frustrating job for the new U.N. spokesman."