标签： Asia

For the first time in nearly 16 years, a sitting Lebanese president is set to step into the Oval Office for a high-stakes meeting with a U.S. head of state, marking a historic turning point for Lebanese-U.S. relations and the implementation of a new ceasefire deal between Lebanon and Israel. Joseph Aoun, a former commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), will meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, just one month after Washington mediated a trilateral framework agreement between Israel, Lebanon, and the United States aimed at ending a months-long conflict that has claimed more than 4,000 Lebanese lives.

The first phase of the agreement officially launched on Monday, with the Trump administration confirming that so-called “pilot zone operations” have commenced in the southern Lebanese villages of Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar Al-Gharbiya. These operations are being overseen by the newly established U.S.-led Military Coordination Group for Lebanon. Under the terms of the framework, Lebanese armed forces will deploy to southern areas to take over security control as Israeli forces withdraw, with the core mission of disarming the Iran-aligned militant group Hezbollah. The conflict erupted in March, when Hezbollah launched rocket attacks into northern Israel in support of its ally Iran, prompting a large-scale Israeli incursion that has left roughly one-fifth of Lebanese territory under Israeli occupation to date.

Key questions remain about the feasibility of the LAF’s assigned mission. The Lebanese military is already under-equipped compared to Hezbollah, which retains superior military capabilities across Lebanon and has not agreed to disarm itself. Washington has moved to shore up the LAF with a new $30 million funding boost last month, on top of a previously announced $100 million package of humanitarian aid for conflict-affected communities in the region, but analysts warn structural challenges could derail implementation.

At a Monday media briefing hosted by the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Sami Halabi, policy director and co-founder of regional consultancy Triangle, outlined the conflicting incentives facing Hezbollah. “If the framework fails, Hezbollah gains politically, because continued Israeli occupation proves its argument that diplomacy cannot deliver for Lebanon and that its armed arsenal is necessary for national defense,” Halabi explained. “At the same time, the group and its political allies want Israeli forces to withdraw, particularly from territories that are home to their core electoral and community constituencies.”

Halabi also pointed to a critical structural flaw in the deal’s security annex: the agreement frames Israeli movement as conditional redeployment rather than full withdrawal, with no binding timeline for completion and no automatic consequences for Israeli delays. “This creates a fundamental asymmetry between Lebanon and Israel,” he noted. Despite these concerns, U.S. officials have framed the framework as a landmark diplomatic breakthrough. U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott called the deal a “milestone” in a Monday statement, adding that it grew directly out of recent Israel-Lebanon talks in Rome and that Washington would remain actively engaged to see the agreement through to full implementation. The Israeli military confirmed the process is underway in a post on X, warning it would “respond forcefully to any violation of the agreement.”

Aoun’s Washington visit, which began Saturday when he arrived in the U.S. capital with his wife, marks the first time a Lebanese president has visited the White House since Michel Sleiman met then-President Barack Obama in 2009. Aoun has not previously held one-on-one talks with Trump, and has little of the close rapport other regional leaders like Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa have built with the U.S. president. Still, like all Arab leaders, Aoun shares the widespread assessment that only Trump can exert meaningful pressure to rein in Israeli expansion.

In a break from standard diplomatic protocol, Aoun held a separate meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department on Sunday ahead of his White House audience. The move, which notably saw Lebanon’s foreign minister Youssef Rajji skip the trip entirely, sparked public outrage across segments of Lebanese society, with many critics framing the snub of their top diplomat as a national humiliation. Rubio characterized the discussions as “very positive” following the meeting, telling reporters that “President Aoun will be able to return to Lebanon and say to the people of Lebanon that he is the one getting positive results” for the country. He also emphasized that Washington recognizes Aoun’s government as the sole legitimate authority in Lebanon, “not Iran, not Hezbollah.”

The trilateral framework was finalized last month after five rounds of U.S.-hosted talks, with Rubio calling it “the beginning of the beginning” ahead of the official signing. Beyond the $30 million in support for the LAF and $100 million in United Nations-coordinated humanitarian aid, Rubio said the deal creates a clear, structured pathway to restore Lebanese sovereignty over its southern territory, disarm Hezbollah, dismantle the group’s military infrastructure, and allow Israel to secure its northern border once security threats are eliminated. “For Lebanon, this Framework provides a genuine pathway out of a long crisis. For Israel, it creates a verifiable path to removing the persistent threat on its northern border,” he said.

Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad described the ongoing Washington negotiations as “long and difficult.” In a post on X, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed the framework as a step toward “restoration of the state’s sovereignty” but emphasized that Lebanon will not take on any new obligations beyond those already outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the 2024 ceasefire agreement. Salam also reaffirmed that “Only the legitimate forces are authorized to bear arms in Lebanon.”

While Hezbollah refused to join direct negotiations with Israel, reports indicate the group maintained backchannel communications with the Trump administration throughout the mediation process. The militant group remains the most powerful military actor in Lebanon, with firepower that far outpaces that of the official Lebanese armed forces, leaving lingering uncertainty about whether the disarmament mandate at the core of the U.S.-brokered deal will ever be fully implemented.

A last-minute nuclear cooperation push by the outgoing Trump administration has sparked intense scrutiny over regional security and non-proliferation norms, as multiple independent outlets have confirmed that the draft deal approved for Saudi Arabia lacks the strict safeguards long required by Washington to prevent nuclear weapons development.

According to an exclusive CNN report published Friday, U.S. officials have already signed off on the draft framework that authorizes Saudi Arabia to pursue domestic uranium enrichment as part of its stated civilian nuclear program. Negotiations between Washington and Riyadh wrapped up in October, but the agreement — which includes the mandatory bilateral “123 agreement” required for major U.S. nuclear exports and associated safeguards protocols — has not yet been sent to Congress for the required legislative review. Unnamed senior officials cited by CNN suggest the hold-up is deliberate: the Trump White House fears broad bipartisan backlash from lawmakers who have long demanded strict non-proliferation terms for any Saudi nuclear deal.

The timing of the expected presidential signature remains uncertain, amid growing expectations that Congress will flip to a Democratic majority following the November general election, which would effectively kill the proposal and derail a key foreign policy priority for the administration.

Saudi leadership has openly pushed for this framework for years. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his top advisors have prioritized securing U.S. approval for domestic enrichment, leveraging the kingdom’s extensive domestic uranium reserves to build out a civilian nuclear energy sector. Last year, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman publicly reiterated the kingdom’s ambitions, stating “We will enrich it and we will sell it and we will do a ‘yellowcake’” — referencing the intermediate step between uranium mining and enrichment. The crown prince made the nuclear deal a top agenda item during his 2019 visit to the White House, cementing its status as a core priority for the bilateral relationship.

Geopolitical context adds further urgency to Riyadh’s push. Earlier in 2020, just days after an Israeli strike on Hamas negotiators based in Qatar, Saudi Arabia signed a wide-ranging defense pact with Pakistan — the only Muslim-majority nuclear-armed state, which holds an estimated 170 nuclear warheads. Both governments confirmed the agreement covers all forms of military cooperation, leading to widespread speculation that the deal included informal nuclear security arrangements that placed Saudi Arabia under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella.

U.S. analysts have framed the proposed American nuclear deal as a strategic counter to that partnership. A former U.S. intelligence official previously told Middle East Eye that bringing Saudi Arabia into a U.S.-backed nuclear framework would pull the kingdom away from Pakistani influence and shore up its regional standing relative to rival Gulf states. “It would pull them out of the Pakistanis’ nuclear umbrella and make the Saudis feel better than the Qataris,” the official explained.

Critics have repeatedly pointed out that the draft agreement breaks with longstanding U.S. non-proliferation precedent. Back in February 2020, the Trump administration formally notified Congress it would pursue a civil nuclear pact that omits the strict non-proliferation safeguards that have been standard for U.S. partners for decades. Unlike the U.S.’s 2009 nuclear agreement with the United Arab Emirates — which explicitly barred the UAE from enriching uranium and reprocessing spent fuel as a condition for cooperation — the Saudi draft only calls for “additional safeguards and verification measures to the most sensitive areas of potential nuclear cooperation,” language that leaves a clear opening for the kingdom to expand enrichment activities for military purposes in the future.

Foreign policy analysts widely agree that this framework would reshape Middle Eastern security dynamics far more dramatically than the separate F-35 fighter jet sale the Trump administration is also negotiating with Riyadh. Dozens of countries — including Morocco, the UAE, and multiple European and Asian nations — have already signed 123 agreements with the U.S., which are required under U.S. law to approve significant exports of U.S.-origin nuclear materials and equipment.

For years, bipartisan groups of U.S. lawmakers have insisted that any Saudi nuclear deal require the kingdom to adopt the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which grants United Nations nuclear inspectors expanded access to nuclear facilities, documentation, and undeclared sites to verify no clandestine weapons work is underway. The UAE, the only other Gulf state to strike a formal nuclear partnership with the U.S., signed the Additional Protocol back in 2009 as a condition of its deal.

However, a Reuters report confirmed that the Trump administration sent a required preliminary notification to congressional committee leaders in November confirming it would not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the Additional Protocol. The notification underscores how the Trump administration has prioritized expedited deal-making in its Middle East diplomacy, even when it puts it at odds with longstanding norms and priorities of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

Seventy years after Dag Hammarskjold stepped into what was famously called ‘the most impossible job on Earth’, the United Nations is once again gearing up to select a new leader to succeed incumbent Antonio Guterres, with the successful candidate set to take office on January 1 next year. Long described as one of the world’s most challenging diplomatic roles, the UN secretary-general position operates under longstanding informal rotational norms that point to a Latin American candidate this cycle, with the last holder from the region leaving office in 1992. There is also widespread unwritten expectation that the 80-year-old global body will name its first female secretary-general in this election. Whoever ultimately claims the post will inherit an institution strained by crises on multiple fronts. As the UN’s largest financial contributor, Washington has cut voluntary contributions and withdrawn from the World Health Organization, while widespread unpaid dues from member states have pushed the organisation into a deepening liquidity crisis. Under Guterres’ tenure, the UN Security Council has been gridlocked and unable to stop or prevent mass atrocities in Gaza and Sudan, as well as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Critics have also accused the U.S. of violating UN charter principles over actions including the abduction and detention of a Venezuelan official and its joint military actions with Israel against Iran. The selection process formally kicked off in late November 2025, when the presidents of the UN General Assembly and Security Council put out an official call for nominations, opening the door for candidates to declare their candidacies. Under UN charter rules, the 15-member Security Council first recommends a candidate to the 193-member General Assembly for final approval, a step that has historically functioned as a procedural rubber stamp. The real contest plays out in the Security Council, where a winning candidate needs backing from at least nine of the 15 members, and crucially cannot face opposition from any of the five veto-wielding permanent members: the U.S., UK, France, Russia, and China. The selection process relies on a structured system of anonymous, informal straw polls to gauge member sentiment. In these private ballots, ambassadors mark each candidate as ‘encourage’, ‘no opinion’, or ‘discourage’. If no clear frontrunner emerges after initial rounds with identical unmarked ballots, permanent members switch to colored ballots that reveal whether a veto holder opposes a candidate without exposing which specific country objects. A ‘discourage’ vote from any permanent member is effectively a fatal blow to a candidate’s chances. To date, two rounds of straw polls have been held, with color-coded ballots not yet needed. As of the most recent polling, Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett has edged into the lead, ahead of Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Argentina’s Rafael Mariano Grossi. A seasoned diplomat who served as Guyana’s UN representative and held cabinet roles in foreign and indigenous affairs, Rodrigues-Birkett also represented her country on the Security Council in 2024–2025. Nominated by her home country, she earned formal endorsement from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in July this year. Positioning herself as a ‘principled, pragmatic’ advocate for small and developing states, Rodrigues-Birkett has pledged to give equal priority to the UN’s three core mandates: peace and security, development, and human rights. On the peace and security front, she has committed to more active use of the secretary-general’s ‘good offices’ authority, and has pledged to invoke Article 99 of the UN Charter to bring emerging threats to international peace directly to the Security Council. She has also highlighted that only 18 percent of UN Sustainable Development Goal targets are currently on track, and called for reform of global financial rules paired with deeper partnerships with the private sector. While she supports the UN secretariat’s ongoing UN80 efficiency reform drive, she has warned against austerity cuts that would erode critical on-the-ground services for vulnerable populations. In the August straw poll, she secured eight ‘encourage’ votes, three ‘discourage’ votes, and four ‘no opinion’ votes, putting her at the top of the field. Close behind Rodrigues-Birkett is Rebeca Grynspan, a Costa Rican economist who led the first round of polling in July with 10 ‘encourage’ votes and only one ‘discourage’ vote, before slipping to seven ‘encourage’ and four ‘discourage’ in the second round. Grynspan has pledged to immediately restructure the secretary-general’s office to prioritize its mediation mandate, building it into a trusted intermediary that relies more heavily on quiet diplomacy. She also advocates for closer collaboration between UN peace operations and regional actors on the ground. Grynspan has called for cutting overlapping bureaucratic responsibilities, improving budget efficiency, leveraging AI and other technologies to speed up crisis response, and strengthening accountability through merit-based appointments and zero tolerance for workplace misconduct. On development, she pushes for fairer borrowing terms for low-income nations and an end to crippling debt repayments that siphon funding away from essential public services. Third place in the August round is held by Rafael Mariano Grossi, the veteran Argentine diplomat who has served as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for seven years. Nominated in late November, Grossi has positioned himself as an independent candidate, personally funding his campaign to avoid reliance on outside backers. Framing himself as a pragmatic, on-the-ground mediator rather than a radical reformer, he argues the UN can restore its global credibility through direct diplomacy and consistent delivery on existing commitments. His five core priorities are peace and security, development through cross-sector partnerships, on-the-ground human rights engagement, institutional and management renewal, and pragmatic multilateralism that engages all global stakeholders. ‘The world still needs the United Nations,’ he has said. ‘But it must be a United Nations that works.’ Like Rodrigues-Birkett, he has highlighted slow progress on sustainable development goals and called for deeper engagement with the private sector and scientific community. He also supports eliminating overlapping UN mandates, digitizing UN operations, and aligning department resourcing with active, funded priorities rather than sustaining outdated programs. Notably, Grossi rarely addresses climate policy as a standalone issue, instead folding it into discussions of energy and nuclear power. His candidacy faces headwinds: he drew six ‘discourage’ votes in the latest poll, more than his top rivals, and his campaign has become linked to Argentina’s recent escalation of sovereignty claims over the Falkland Islands. While the UK, a permanent Security Council member, has stated it evaluates candidates solely on merit, it retains the power to veto his candidacy if it chooses. The remaining four candidates in the eight-person field trail the top three, with varying paths forward. Ecuador’s Maria Fernanda Espinosa, a former UN General Assembly president and the first woman to serve as Ecuador’s defense minister, entered the race in May after being nominated by Antigua and Barbuda. She has argued that the gap between the UN’s promises and its on-the-ground delivery has grown unacceptably wide, and centered her campaign on five pillars of transformation: peace and security, development, energy and digital transformation, improved delivery capacity, and sustainable resourcing. Her signature policy proposal is a Prevention and Early Action Hub that would consolidate scattered UN early warning capabilities under the direct authority of the secretary-general, allowing the body to address crises before they escalate without adding new bureaucratic layers. She also calls for locally led development solutions, debt relief for low-income nations, and a global dialogue to establish shared regulatory safeguards for AI and other emerging technologies. Espinosa only secured four ‘encourage’ votes in the August poll, well short of the nine-vote threshold, but she drew eight ‘no opinion’ votes, meaning she faces little outright opposition and retains an outside chance of gaining momentum if she can win over undecided members. Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, who served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022, was jointly nominated by Chile, Brazil, and Mexico in early 2026, though Chile’s new hard-right government later withdrew its support. A survivor of political detention and torture under the Pinochet dictatorship, Bachelet positions herself as a proven administrator who can make the UN leaner and more effective using existing resources, while strengthening early intervention in emerging crises. She has called for a more preventative approach to conflict, with more staff deployed on the ground in at-risk regions rather than relying on statements from New York headquarters. Bachelet also prioritizes action on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, with targeted debt relief for small island developing states, landlocked nations, and least developed countries, as well as greater systematic inclusion of women in peacebuilding and decision-making. Once an early favorite, Bachelet has slipped badly in polling, drawing only two ‘encourage’ votes and six ‘discourage’ votes in the August round. Two African candidates are in the race, both facing structural barriers due to the informal regional rotation norm that favors a Latin American candidate this cycle. Former Senegalese president Macky Sall was nominated by Burundi in March, when Burundi held the African Union’s rotating chairmanship, but the AU has never formally endorsed his candidacy. Sall centers his campaign on his African leadership record, campaigning under the slogan ‘For a Renewed and Inclusive Multilateralism’ with the tagline ‘Africa at heart, the world in sight’. He has laid out three priorities for his first 100 days: strengthening UN conflict prevention, reviewing institutional structures and mandates to improve effectiveness and financial governance, and centering human rights and development in all UN work. Sall argues that low-income nations face unfair borrowing costs for crises they did little to cause, and calls for reform of the concentrated wealth and voting power held by the five permanent Security Council members. His poll numbers have remained static between the first and second rounds, and while he has gained backing from Senegal’s current president, the lack of AU endorsement and the presence of a second African candidate in the race have held back his campaign. Veteran Ugandan diplomat Olara Otunnu, a former UN under-secretary-general who held senior roles across four decades of global diplomacy, has posted the biggest gains of any candidate between the two rounds of polling, doubling his number of ‘encourage’ votes. Nominated by Uganda in July with the backing of President Yoweri Museveni, Otunnu frames his candidacy as a chance to restore the UN’s founding mission of preventing war at a time when that mission has been sidelined. He has pledged to prioritize active negotiations on the world’s deadliest ongoing conflicts – including Ukraine, Gaza, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Iran – within his first 100 days, holding dedicated conferences under regional frameworks to advance progress. Otunnu argues that UN restructuring should be led by member states rather than imposed by the secretariat, to cut duplication while preserving institutional legitimacy. He also calls for a dedicated UN agency for AI governance, deployment of digital technology to reduce global poverty, and climate action that balances emissions reductions with economic growth and energy security. While Otunnu has outperformed Sall in polling, he still faces the same structural barrier of not being a female Latin American candidate. The final candidate, Ecuadorian diplomat Ivonne A-Baki, was nominated by Tonga and entered the race just four days before the second straw poll. A-Baki, who has Lebanese descent and gained experience in conflict resolution during the 1980s Israeli bombardment of Beirut, frames conflict prevention as a core economic priority, noting that global violence costs the world economy an estimated $13.6 trillion annually. She proposes a new ‘guarantor method’ of mediation, where a small group of mutually accepted states oversees negotiations and guarantees final settlements, and calls for full implementation of Resolution 2719 to allow UN funding for African Union-led peace operations. A-Baki also supports sweeping Security Council reform, adding permanent representation for historically underrepresented regions including Africa and Latin America, arguing the current permanent member veto system reflects the outcome of a war that ended 80 years ago. She also criticizes structural waste in the UN, pointing to 27,000 annual meetings costing $360 million, and proposes that all institutional mandates automatically expire unless actively renewed. A-Baki drew zero ‘encourage’ votes, eight ‘discourage’ votes, and seven ‘no opinion’ votes in her first poll, leaving her with almost insurmountable ground to make up to remain in contention. Lobbying and informal discussions will continue through the month, ahead of the UN General Assembly’s opening later this September, when the formal appointment of the next secretary-general is expected to be finalized.

After a tightly contested internal leadership vote, the Palestinian militant and political movement Hamas has chosen veteran negotiator Khalil al-Hayya to lead its political bureau, placing a seasoned diplomatic figure at the helm of the organization at a moment of unprecedented crisis for Gaza and escalating regional conflict.

The election result was formally announced this Monday, following a runoff vote that capped a months-long leadership selection process. According to Walid Al Omari, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Palestine bureau chief, Hayya secured a narrow victory, earning 35 votes to beat out former Hamas political bureau chief and ex-external leader Khaled Meshaal, who collected 34 votes. The leadership contest was first launched in May, when the first round of voting failed to produce a clear winner, extending the process for months.

Hayya, who currently resides in Qatar, succeeds Yahya Sinwar, who took over the top role temporarily after Israel assassinated former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024. Sinwar was himself killed by Israeli forces during combat operations in Rafah just three months after assuming the position. In the intervening period, Hamas has been governed by a five-member interim council chaired by Mohammed Darwish, head of the movement’s Shura Council, which oversaw day-to-day political operations and mediated ceasefire negotiations with Israel.

Hayya’s election restores a singular, permanent leadership structure for Hamas, and stands as a testament to the movement’s resilience amid Israel’s sustained campaign to eliminate its top leadership through targeted assassinations. In September 2025, Israel attempted to assassinate Hayya alongside the entire Palestinian negotiating delegation based in Qatar, in what was widely seen as an effort to derail ongoing ceasefire talks. The brazen attack drew widespread global condemnation, with many international observers labeling it a blatant act of “gangster behaviour”.

Over the more than two years of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Hayya has emerged as one of Hamas’s most prominent and recognizable public faces. He has led the movement’s negotiating delegation through all major rounds of talks focused on ceasefire agreements, hostage-prisoner exchanges, and the long-term political future of the Gaza Strip. This high-stakes role has placed him at the center of regional diplomatic efforts brokered by Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and other key Middle Eastern powers.

Born in Gaza City on November 5, 1960, Hayya grew up in the occupied Palestinian territories after Israel seized control of Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War. He pursued a background in Islamic scholarship, earning a doctorate in Hadith sciences after graduating from the Faculty of Islamic Theology at Gaza’s Islamic University — an institution that has since been destroyed by Israeli bombardment. His political journey began in 1980, when he met Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and over the subsequent four decades, he steadily rose through the movement’s ranks. He has previously served on Hamas’s political bureau, acted as deputy leader for the movement’s Gaza branch, and led the organization’s outreach efforts to Arab and Muslim nations. In 2006, Palestinian voters elected Hayya to the Palestinian Legislative Council, where he went on to lead Hamas’s parliamentary bloc following the historic first national elections.

Throughout his decades of political engagement, Hayya has repeatedly faced targeting by Israeli forces: he was detained multiple times, including a prolonged prison sentence in 1991, and has survived numerous assassination attempts. The personal cost of his leadership has been steep, with Israel killing four of his sons and multiple other members of his extended family over the years. Osama, Osama’s wife, and three of their grandchildren were killed in an Israeli bombing of their home during the 2014 Gaza war. Hamza, a member of Hamas’s armed wing, died in an Israeli missile strike east of Gaza City. Hammam was killed in the September 2025 Israeli airstrike on Hamas negotiators in Doha that targeted Hayya himself. Most recently, Azzam was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza in May 2026, an attack that also killed one other person and wounded nine. Hayya’s only surviving son, Ezzedine, was injured in an Israeli strike on Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood in April 2025, and one of Hayya’s grandchildren was killed in an Israeli attack on a Gaza City school that same month. A 2007 assassination attempt on Hayya killed seven of his extended family members, including two brothers, four nephews, and a cousin.

Hayya takes control of Hamas at a defining crossroads for the movement, the people of Gaza, and the broader Palestinian national struggle. Today, Gaza lies in ruins, with over 60 percent of the enclave under Israeli military occupation, and Israeli forces carry out almost daily attacks despite a ceasefire agreement that Hamas accepted and Israel has repeatedly violated. The Israeli government has openly stated its goal to ethnically cleanse the besieged population of Gaza and expand its military operations across the occupied West Bank. For now, Palestinians across the territories and the global diaspora are watching closely to see what direction Hayya will steer the movement, and what his leadership will mean for their decades-long struggle for self-determination.

A key clarification has emerged in the unfolding disciplinary case against International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, with the head of the court’s governing Assembly of States Parties (ASP) confirming last week that no retaliation allegations against Khan have been formally upheld by the ASP’s executive bureau.

In a 17 July letter, Finnish diplomat and ASP President Paivi Kaukoranta made clear that the 21-member executive bureau failed to secure the supermajority vote required to validate any finding of retaliation misconduct. The claims were originally brought forward by two members of Khan’s own office during a UN-led independent probe launched in November 2024, when Kaukoranta made the decision to outsource the full investigation into multiple allegations against Khan to the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

Alongside three separate retaliation claims, the investigation also included an allegation of sexual misconduct brought by a female staff member, which had already been opened and closed twice previously after the complainant refused to cooperate with internal ICC proceedings. Both the complainant and Khan ultimately cooperated with the OIOS probe, with Khan repeatedly denying all allegations of wrongdoing from the outset.

Over 12 months, UN investigators collected and assessed evidence to present to a specially appointed panel of judges, which was tasked with evaluating the claims against the strict legal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The OIOS submitted its 150-page final report, accompanied by more than 5,000 pages of supporting evidence, to the judge panel in December 2025. Investigators ultimately dismissed one retaliation claim outright, concluding that the actions in question were a legitimate response to documented work performance concerns, not retaliation.

The panel of judges spent nearly three months reviewing the UN investigation’s findings before issuing a unanimous conclusion in March 2026: the evidence presented in the probe did not meet the threshold to confirm any misconduct or breach of duty under ICC rules. However, just weeks after the panel cleared Khan, a simple majority of bureau members backed a controversial motion to disregard the judges’ independent findings, opening the door to claims that the process had been politicized.

Two months later, after granting Khan and the complainants a final opportunity to submit additional testimony, the bureau voted to suspend Khan formally and referred the full case to the full ASP plenary for a final vote. Redacted versions of the OIOS report, the judge panel’s findings, and all related submissions have been distributed to the 125 ASP member states, ahead of a high-stakes plenary vote at UN Headquarters in New York this Friday that will decide Khan’s future as chief prosecutor.

The bureau’s 8 June 2026 confidential decision did find that evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt Khan had engaged in a sexual relationship with the complainant, arguing the power dynamic between the office head and a subordinate made the relationship inherently inappropriate. Notably, however, the bureau explicitly declined to uphold any findings on the retaliation claims, a detail Kaukoranta’s recent letter confirms aligns with earlier reporting from Middle East Eye (MEE).

Following the bureau’s decision, some member states pushed to reopen the retaliation claim question and called for a formal clear statement from the ASP leadership, prompting Kaukoranta’s official clarification this week. In her letter, she explained the bureau’s inability to reach a conclusion on the claims from the two whistleblowers, identified only as W06 and W10, stemmed from deep division among members that left the body short of the required two-thirds majority for substantive findings.

“As the Prosecutor benefits from the presumption of innocence, the legal effect of the Bureau’s statement is that no misconduct in relation to the allegations of W06 and W10 has been established against the Prosecutor,” Kaukoranta wrote. She added that the bureau had chosen not to refer the retaliation claims to the full ASP plenary, and the matter is now officially closed, with the two complainants already notified of the decision on the bureau’s behalf.

The Friday vote comes amid widespread criticism of the bureau’s handling of the investigation, with prominent global figures already speaking out against the process. Last Saturday, former European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell publicly accused the ASP of preparing a politically motivated vote to oust Khan, rather than honoring the independent judicial findings that cleared him of most wrongdoing.

Borrell argued that the efforts to remove Khan form part of a broader coordinated offensive against the ICC, pointing to existing U.S. sanctions and threats targeting Khan and other court officials that were imposed after the prosecutor announced plans to seek arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes in Gaza in May 2024.

A high-stakes controversy has erupted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) after a veteran former United Nations investigations chief publicly condemned the ICC’s governing bureau for suspending Prosecutor Karim Khan over misconduct claims, calling the action a coordinated, unfair “stitch-up” that undermines fundamental principles of justice. \n\nBen Swanson, who previously served as UN Assistant Secretary-General and deputy head of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) — and previously led OIOS’ Investigations Division — has submitted four successive expert opinions to the 21-member bureau of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) over the past year. All four opinions, commissioned by Khan’s legal defense team, criticize the procedural irregularities that have marred the misconduct probe and the bureau’s subsequent handling of the case. \n\nSwanson’s most recent submission, dated June 28 and obtained by Middle East Eye via independent sources, directly challenges the bureau’s June 8 decision to suspend Khan, which came after a majority of bureau members ruled he had committed \”serious misconduct.\” Critically, this ruling directly contradicts the unanimous finding of a three-judge independent panel appointed by the bureau itself, which concluded in March that the evidence collected by the UN-led investigation did not prove misconduct or breach of duty under ICC rules. \n\nAfter reviewing both the judges’ panel report and the bureau’s final decision, Swanson wrote, \”I am of the opinion that the Prosecutor is the victim of a massive ‘stitch-up’ and given what has happened since the release of the Panel’s Report I doubt whether justice will be done or seen to be done.\” \n\nSwanson accuses the bureau of adopting a \”dystopian method\” of justice and pursuing an \”activist agenda\” to remove Khan from office. After the independent judicial process the bureau established failed to deliver the outcome it sought, he argues, the bureau usurped both judicial and fact-finding roles to reach its desired conclusion. \”It is clear that an activist agenda is being pursued to remove the Prosecutor from his post, at all costs, by the weaponisation of such scant evidence that may exist, by ignoring the wealth of countervailing evidence available to the Bureau and by failing to take account of the wisdom of three international Judges,\” he added. \n\nThe 125-member ASP, which consists of diplomatic representatives from ICC member states, is set to vote on Khan’s future at UN Headquarters in New York this Friday, bringing the months-long dispute to a decisive head. \n\nThe misconduct process was launched in November 2024, when ASP President Paivi Kaukoranta authorized the probe and outsourced investigative work to OIOS, after the complainant who brought allegations against Khan refused to cooperate with the ICC’s internal investigative body. The probe centered on four allegations: a claim of \”unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature\” and abuse of authority from a female staff member in Khan’s office, plus three separate allegations of retaliation against other office employees. Khan has repeatedly denied all claims of misconduct or breach of duty. \n\nThe bureau’s ruling did not find Khan responsible for any of the three retaliation claims. Instead, the confidential decision obtained by MEE states the bureau found \”the evidence establishes beyond reasonable doubt\” that Khan had a sexual relationship with the complainant, and argued that \”in the context of that power imbalance a sexual relationship could never be appropriate.\” The bureau concluded this conduct amounted to improper use of ICC authority against the complainant. \n\nThis finding marks a significant shift from the original allegations: Khan denies any sexual relationship occurred, while the complainant’s original claim centered on non-consensual sexual conduct. In her first public interview on the case with CNN last week, the complainant reaffirmed her non-consensual conduct allegation. Swanson argues the bureau’s reframing of the claim creates a new allegation that was never part of the original investigation, and was never proven. \”What is charged reads as if the Prosecutor and [the complainant] have indulged in an inappropriate, consensual, workplace romance. That was not what was alleged and in any case has not been proven either,\” he wrote. \n\nAnother core point of criticism from Swanson is the bureau’s decision to conduct its own independent credibility assessment of witnesses and evidence, after both OIOS and the three-judge panel declined to confirm the credibility of the complainant and her evidence. Swanson notes that after the panel issued its report, the bureau had four legitimate procedural options: close the case, request OIOS conduct additional investigation to address open questions, restart the probe from scratch, or launch a formal adjudicated process that would allow for cross-examination of witnesses to properly establish credibility. \n\nKhan’s legal team formally requested an adjudicated process in a letter to the ASP president dated July 30, 2025, but the bureau rejected all such requests, including a demand for an adjudicative hearing before the judicial panel. Swanson argues that by disregarding the panel’s unanimous finding and conducting its own unilateral credibility assessment to reach a finding of serious misconduct, the bureau violated basic procedural fairness. \n\n\”The Bureau in determining credibility did not act with the same legal restraint as the Panel, declaring themselves unrestricted, and by using semantic gymnastics promptly used the same material as was available to the Judges, with the addition of more submissions from the Prosecutor and [the complainant], although they discounted the latter’s, to enable them to make credibility assessments,\” Swanson wrote. He added that the bureau also failed to assess the credibility of evidence itself, a step he says is just as or more important than assessing the credibility of the witness presenting it, and that the bureau applied a blatantly biased standard: it framed the complainant and all her testimony as credible, while dismissing every statement, evidence and testimony from Khan and other witnesses that contradicted her account. \n\nSwanson concluded that the bureau’s finding is \”unsafe and should not be relied upon as a proper basis for disciplinary action,\” and urged ICC member states to give \”decisive weight\” to the three-judge panel’s unanimous conclusion when they vote on July 24. \n\nSwanson is not alone in raising concerns about the legality and integrity of the bureau’s process. Earlier this month, MEE reported that Sir James Eadie KC, the United Kingdom’s First Treasury Counsel, had submitted a private legal opinion to the ASP president last November warning that granting the bureau authority to make a final finding of misconduct was illegal under ICC rules. Eadie argued that any proper process must be judicial in nature, requiring an oral hearing before a panel of judges to test allegations and confirm facts beyond reasonable doubt. \n\n\”It is entirely inappropriate for the determinative function to be undertaken by executive or political bodies,\” Eadie wrote. He added that the approach proposed by the ASP president — which treated OIOS’ investigative findings as fact without an adjudicated process, and only allowed the prosecutor to participate in a limited hearing before the bureau — threatens the core independence and institutional integrity of the ICC.