Former Iraqi president Salih appointed new UNHCR chief

Geneva: Former Iraqi president Barham Salih will become the next United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a UN source told AFP on Friday, taking over an agency tackling swingeing budget cuts.

Salih was president of Iraq from 2018 to 2022. He will take over as UN refugees chief next month from Filippo Grandi, who is leaving at the end of December after 10 years in the post.

The Geneva-based UNHCR, like many other UN agencies, has been hit by drastic international aid cuts. It has shed nearly 5,000 jobs this year - more than a quarter of its workforce.

Salih was a longstanding top official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the second-largest Kurdish Iraqi party.

A moderate and veteran Kurdish politician, Salih’s long political career has included several senior positions in the Iraqi government and in the country’s autonomous Kurdistan region after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled longtime ruler Saddam Hussein.

Salih was also part of an interim authority established by the United States following the invasion.

He was one of Iraq’s deputy prime ministers from 2006 to 2009, then served as the Kurdish prime minister from 2009 to 2012.

Fluent in English, Arabic and Kurdish, UK-educated Salih served for four years as Iraq’s president - a largely ceremonial office traditionally held by a Kurd since 2005.

He is a senior fellow with the Middle East Initiative and the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs of Harvard University.

Salih holds a civil engineering degree from the University of Cardiff and a doctorate in statistics and computer applications in engineering from the University of Liverpool, according to the Belfer Centre.

Originally from Sulaimaniyah, the Iraqi Kurdistan region’s second city, Salih has pushed for several vital city projects, including the establishment of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani - now one of the most respected in the country.