U.S. Ambassador to U.N. Nikki Haley to Leave at End of Year

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said Tuesday U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is leaving the administration “at the end of the year.” Trump spoke as he and Haley met in the Oval Office, shortly after word came of her plans to resign.

He called Haley a “very special” person, adding that she told him six months ago that she might want to take some time off. Trump said that together, they had “solved a lot of problems.”

Trump said he hoped she could come back to the administration in another capacity.

Trump said that he will name Haley’s successor within the next two or three weeks.

It’s the latest shake-up in the turbulent Trump administration just weeks before the November midterm election.

No reason for the resignation was immediately provided.

Trump also said that his next meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is happening and officials are in the process of setting it up.

Trump said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a great meeting with Kim and that three or four locations were being considered for the two leaders’ next summit.

Haley, 46, was appointed to the U.N. post in November 2016 and last month coordinated Trump’s second trip to the United Nations, including his first time chairing the U.N. Security Council.

Before she was named by Trump to her U.N. post, Haley was governor of South Carolina, the first woman to hold the post. She was re-elected in 2014.

As governor, she developed a national reputation as a racial conciliator who led the charge to bring down the Confederate flag at the Statehouse and guided South Carolina through one of its darkest moments, the massacre at a black church.