Movses Abelian is an Armenian-Georgian diplomat and United Nations official. In June 2019, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed him as Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management.[1] He additionally appointed him, on 3 September 2019, as UN Coordinator for Multilingualism.[2]
Abelian was educated at schools in Armenia, the Russian Federation, and the United States.[3] He served as an associate professor at Yerevan State University, starting in 1989.[4] In 1992, he joined the Armenian Foreign Service. He was Deputy Permanent Representative of Armenia to the United Nations from 1996 to 1998, before becoming Ambassador and Permanent Representative in 1998, a position in which he served until 2003. He was President of the UNICEF Executive Board in 2001.[5] [6]
In 2011, he was appointed Director of the Security Council Affairs Division and Secretary of the United Nations Security Council.[7] In 2016, he was appointed Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, responsible for General Assembly affairs and conference management (2016–2019).
In 2019, he was made Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management, and later that year was made UN Coordinator for Multilingualism.
He and his wife have two children.