UN elects former Iraqi President Barham Salih as head of refugee agency

THE UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday approved former Iraqi President Barham Salih as the next head of the United Nations refugee agency, the first in the Middle East since the late 1970s.

The 193-member world body elected the 65-year-old Kurdish politician as UN high commissioner for refugees by consensus and with a hammer blow from Assembly President Annalena Baerbock. Diplomats in the assembly hall applauded as Salih’s election became official.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a former refugee chief who recommended Salih for the job, said he brings “high-level diplomatic, political and administrative leadership experience,” including as a “refugee, crisis negotiator and architect of national reforms.”

At the age of 19 in 1979, Salih was reportedly arrested twice by Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party for involvement in the Kurdish national movement and spent 43 days in detention. When he was released, he finished high school and fled to the United Kingdom to avoid further persecution.

After Saddam was toppled by a U.S.-led coalition in 2003, Salih returned to Iraq and served in various government positions. He became Iraq’s president in 2018, immediately following the Islamic State group’s devastation in Iraq and the battle to retake territory captured by the extremist group. He served until 2022.

Salih succeeds longtime agency veteran Filippo Grandi, whose second five-year term expires Dec. 31. Salih’s five-year term begins on January 1.

Salih will take the reins of the Geneva-based UNHCR at the end of a devastating year for many UN organizations, including the refugee agency. The UN has cut spending and cut thousands of jobs following sharp reductions in foreign aid contributions from the United States – traditionally its biggest donor – and other Western countries.

In a statement after his election, Salih said his experience as a refugee “will inform a leadership approach grounded in empathy, pragmatism and a principled commitment to international law.”

With record displacement and severe funding shortages for humanitarian operations, he said, helping refugees around the world requires “a renewed focus on impact, accountability and effectiveness.”