UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon marked International Women's Day by appointing a seasoned Swedish policewoman as the United Nations's top cop.

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Ban told reporters that Anne-Marie Orler, currently a deputy police adviser to the UN department of peacekeeping operations, would be promoted to the top police post.

"She has been the UN deputy police adviser since 2008 and has led a global effort to recruit more female police officers for UN peace operations," the secretary general said.

"Now the United Nations' top cop is a woman. That is a wonderful way to celeberate International Women's Day," he added.

Orler, who has more than two decades of police experience, will be in charge of 12,867 police officers from 90 nations serving in 15 UN peacekeeping missions around the world.

She previously served as secretary general of Amnesty International in her native Sweden, where she also was police commissioner in the central town of Vastmanland.