Arab foreign ministers on Sunday unanimously nominated former Egyptian foreign minister Nabil Fahmy as the next head of the Cairo-based, 21-member Arab League.
The ministers met virtually, according an Arab League statement.
The nomination will be voted on at the next Arab summit to be held in Saudi Arabia later this year, the pan-Arab organisation said. The endorsement of his nomination by Arab leaders is virtually a foregone conclusion.
The organisation's current secretary general, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, also served as foreign minister of Egypt. If Mr Fahmy is endorsed for the post at the next Arab summit as expected, he will take office in July and serve a five-year term.
Mr Fahmy served as Egypt's foreign minister from June 2013 to July 2014 after stints as ambassador to the US from 1999 to 2008 and to Japan between 1997 and 1999.
After leaving his ministerial post, he has been teaching at the American University in Cairo since 2014. He has also been a guest columnist for a number of Egyptian and regional publications and is often a keynote speaker at foreign policy forums.
He is the son of Ismail Fahmy, Egypt’s foreign minister under former president Anwar Sadat from 1973 to 1977, when he resigned in opposition to Mr Sadat's visit to Jerusalem that year.
Under the Arab League charter, the secretary general is appointed by at least a two-thirds majority of member states. While the charter does not stipulate a specific nationality for the post's occupant, it has traditionally been held by an Egyptian.
The only non-Egyptian who held the post was Tunisian Chedli Klibi, who filled that position from 1979 to 1990, a time when Egypt was ostracised by fellow Arab states for making peace with Israel.
During Mr Klibi's time at the helm, the organisation's headquarters moved from Cairo to Tunis.
The Arab League, founded in 1945, co-ordinates political, economic and cultural policies across the region. However, it has come to be seen as more as a forum for debate rather than a driver of regional policy such as the European Union.
