Khalilur Rahman
Bangladeshi diplomat and President of the UN General Assembly
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Through United Nations, UN Trade and Development and Master's degree
A career civil servant, Rahman spent much of his professional life at the United Nations, including stints with UNCTAD and in the UN secretary-general's executive office, where he worked on issues affecting the world's least developed countries. He returned to government service in Bangladesh following the July Uprising, serving as the interim administration's high representative on the Rohingya crisis and later as National Security Adviser before being named foreign minister in Tarique Rahman's cabinet.
Rahman studied at the University of Dhaka before earning a master's degree from Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a PhD in economics from Harvard University.
Early life and education
Born in Nawabganj, East Bengal, Pakistan (now Bangladesh), on 1 April 1954, Rahman was educated at Dhaka Residential Model College and later studied economics at the University of Dhaka, where he graduated at the top of his class in the master's examination in economics. In 1979 he worked briefly at American Express Bank before studying in the United States between 1980 and 1983, completing a Master's degree in law and diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University and a doctorate of philosophy in economics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Harvard University.
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Career
Civil service
Rahman placed first in the first regular Bangladesh Civil Service examination, held in 1977, and joined the service in 1979. Between 1983 and 1991 he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations in New York, including as First Secretary, and acted as a spokesperson for the least developed countries in the General Assembly's Economic and Financial Committee. During this period he was private secretary to the then foreign minister Humayun Rashid Choudhury, who served as President of the General Assembly for its 41st session in 1986–87.
United Nations
Rahman joined the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) secretariat as chief of its New York office and also served as a special adviser for UNCTAD in Geneva. Later he was in charge of economic, social and development affairs in the executive office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and served as secretary of a high-level panel on the United Nations Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries and chair of an inter-agency group on non-tariff barriers to trade. Rahman's role involved working on reports related to the least developed countries and contributing to the programme of action adopted at the third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Brussels in 2001, which included provisions on duty-free and quota-free market access for the least developed countries.
In 2012 Rahman was appointed head of the policy development, coordination and monitoring service for the least developed countries at the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. In all, his association with the United Nations system spans more than three decades.
Government of Bangladesh
In 2001 Rahman served briefly as private secretary to Latifur Rahman, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh to the caretaker government of Bangladesh.
High representative and national security adviser
On 19 November 2024, following the July Uprising earlier that year, Rahman was appointed as high representative for the Rohingya crisis and related issues by the Chief Adviser, Muhammad Yunus. From April 2025 he also held the role of National Security Adviser, a position he retained until the interim government left office in February 2026. In the post he was involved in shaping the interim administration's foreign policy and led the Bangladeshi side in negotiations on a reciprocal trade agreement with the United States.
In May 2025, Bangladesh Nationalist Party standing committee member Salahuddin Ahmed alleged that Rahman was a foreign citizen and questioned his suitability for the national security post. Rahman rejected the claim, saying he held Bangladeshi citizenship only and had no other passport, and that living in the United States with his family did not make him a foreign national. After he compared his own situation to that of the BNP's then acting chairman Tarique Rahman, who had long lived in the United Kingdom, the party called for his removal from the post.
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In February 2026 Rahman was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs as a technocrat member of the government of Tarique Rahman, and was sworn in on 17 February.
As minister he told parliament that the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade concluded with the United States—which he had negotiated as national security adviser—would help attract investment, support energy security and secure duty-free access for Bangladeshi garments made with American cotton, and he outlined efforts to revive SAARC, strengthen BIMSTEC and diversify export and labour markets. He travelled to Beijing in May 2026 and to Moscow in June 2026 for talks with the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, the latter his first foreign trip after his election to the General Assembly presidency, and attended the ASEAN Regional Forum ministerial meeting in Manila, where he pressed for a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis. In July 2026 he hosted the visiting United States special envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor, saying that relations between the two countries were on a positive trajectory and that Bangladesh sought continued American support on the Rohingya issue.
President of the United Nations General Assembly
Candidacy and election
Bangladesh entered the race for the presidency of the 81st session relatively late, campaigning for the seat allocated by regional rotation to the Asia-Pacific Group; Rahman used engagements such as the Commonwealth foreign ministers' meeting in London in March 2026 to canvass support. At an informal interactive dialogue with member states on 13 May 2026 he presented a vision statement and undertook to serve as a full-time president who would apply the office's code of conduct and pay particular attention to small delegations.
On 2 June 2026, in a rare contested secret ballot, Rahman was elected to succeed Annalena Baerbock for the 81st session. He received 99 of the 190 ballots cast, with Cyprus's candidate Andreas Kakouris winning 91; there were no invalid ballots or abstentions. In his acceptance speech Rahman said he took up the role with humility at a time when confidence in the international system was strained, and pledged to rebuild trust and create space for good-faith negotiation. His election made Bangladesh only the second country from the region to reclaim the post after four decades, a result Prime Minister Tarique Rahman described as a reflection of the country's standing abroad.
The election prompted debate in Dhaka over whether Rahman would give up the foreign affairs portfolio. He said he would not resign and might instead take leave, noting that the prime minister had agreed to release him for a year, and pointed to the precedent of Humayun Rashid Choudhury, to whom he had been private secretary, and of Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives, who presided over the 76th session while remaining foreign minister. In July 2026 he spent about three weeks in New York on preparatory engagements for the session. Accounts of his status subsequently diverged: UN News reported on 8 September 2026 that he had left the foreign ministry to take up his new duties, while Bangladeshi government listings and media continued to identify him as foreign minister.
81st session
Rahman took office on 8 September 2026, receiving the Icelandic gavel from Baerbock at the opening of the session, and became the second Bangladeshi to hold the position after Choudhury. He set the session's theme as "Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all" and told delegates that the organisation had to be made fit for the future, remarking that the world had moved on since 1945 and that the institution had to move with it.
He organised the session's work around six priorities: peace, security and justice; acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals; climate resilience and environmental sustainability, including loss and damage finance ahead of COP31; human rights, humanitarian action and the protection of refugees and migrants; digital governance, artificial intelligence and the interests of future generations; and renewed multilateralism, UN reform and inclusive global governance.
The presidency coincides with the selection of a successor to Secretary-General António Guterres, whose second term ends on 31 December 2026; Baerbock formally handed the selection process to Rahman in a letter to member states dated 4 September 2026, and the president of the General Assembly convenes member states and coordinates with the president of the Security Council on a recommendation. Rahman presided over the high-level week of the session, whose general debate opened on 22 September 2026 and whose agenda included meetings on climate action and the just transition, sea level rise, pandemic prevention and preparedness, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.
Other roles
Rahman is a founding member of East West University in Dhaka and served on its board of trustees until November 2025, when he was appointed high representative on the Rohingya issue.
Personal life
Rahman is married and has two daughters and four grandchildren. He lived in the United States with his family for a period before returning to government service in Bangladesh, and has said that he holds Bangladeshi citizenship alone.