Kurdish politician and former Iraqi president Barham Salih has officially taken office as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Thursday.
In a post on X, Barham Salih said: “Today I begin my tenure as High Commissioner for UNHCR. Guided by our shared humanity and legal mandate, we will work with our partners and host nations, to protect refugees, deliver durable solutions, and confront the displacement crises affecting millions of people.”
The High Commissioner for Refugees is one of the highest-ranking positions in the UN system. The agency coordinates the global protection and care of currently over 120 million people who have been forced to flee their homes, including refugees, internally displaced persons, and asylum seekers. Salih’s term of office is five years, with the possibility of a one-time extension.
The 65-year-old’s candidacy was made public at the end of October by Hoshyar Zebari, a leading member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). On 18 December 2025, the UN General Assembly elected Barham Salih as the new High Commissioner for Refugees.
Who is Barham Salih?
Barham Salih was born on September 12, 1960, in Sulaymaniyah in southern Kurdistan. At a young age, he was arrested twice by the Iraqi Baath regime for his political activism. He later lived in exile in the United Kingdom, where he studied civil engineering and architecture at Cardiff University. He earned a doctorate in statistics and computer applications in engineering.
In 1976, he joined the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). In the 1990s, he was the representative of the first government of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) abroad and later headed the foreign policy relations of the Kurdish regional government in the US.
Salih was Prime Minister of the KRI from 2001 to 2004. After the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, he became Deputy Prime Minister of the Iraqi transitional government in 2004, then Minister of Planning. Under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, he served again as Deputy Prime Minister from 2006 to 2009. In 2007, he founded the American University of Iraq in Sulaymaniyah. In October 2018, Salih was elected the eighth president of Iraq, a position he held until 2022.