The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday (December 18, 2025) approved former Iraqi President Barham Salih as the next head of the U.N. refugee agency, its first from the Middle East since the late 1970s.
The 193-member world body elected the 65-year-old Kurdish politician as the U.N. high commissioner for refugees by consensus and a bang of the gavel by Assembly President Annalena Baerbock. Diplomats in the assembly chamber burst into applause as Mr. Salih’s election became official.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a former refugee chief who recommended Mr. Salih for the post, said he brings “senior diplomatic, political and administrative leadership experience” to the job, including as “a refugee, crisis negotiator and architect of national reforms.”
At the age of 19 in 1979, Mr. Salih was reportedly arrested twice by Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party on charges of 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 ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in 2003, Mr. Salih returned to Iraq and held various posts in the government. He became Iraq’s president in 2018, in the immediate aftermath of the Islamic State group’s rampage across Iraq and the battle to take back the territory seized by the extremist group. He served until 2022.
