Top Sudanese diplomats at the United Nations have called on states to reject Lana Nusseibeh’s bid to become UN secretary general, accusing the Emirati foreign minister of “whitewashing” the UAE’s role in Sudan’s civil war.
Nusseibeh has emerged as a frontrunner to lead the UN since her last-minute entry to the race on Wednesday, amid a stalemate at the Security Council, whose 15 members have so far been unable to agree on a successor to incumbent top diplomat Antonio Guterres.
But Nusseibeh's candidacy has caused uproar over the UAE’s role in Sudan’s civil war, where it is widely accused of supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary whose mass killings UN investigators say bear the “hallmarks of genocide”.
The UAE denies involvement.
In a statement given exclusively to Middle East Eye, Sudan’s permanent mission to the UN said it had “fundamental questions about Nusseibeh’s independence, impartiality and credibility” as a contender to hold the UN’s top job.
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“She has built her career on defending and whitewashing her country’s record of troubling the peace of Sudan by enabling genocide, the enslavement of our women and girls, sexual violence and other atrocities,” the office said.
“The UAE must face accountability, not to be rewarded with the top global leadership role of the UN.”
The statement comes after MEE revealed that the UK is leaning towards backing Nusseibeh’s bid, according to numerous sources close to the British government.
Denying Emirati involvement
Nusseibeh, who served as the UAE’s ambassador to the UN from 2013 to 2024 between stints in senior posts in the UAE’s foreign ministry, has long denied any Emirati involvement in the civil war.
In April 2024, Nusseibeh told the UN Security Council that any allegations of Emirati support for the RSF were “spurious, unfounded, and lack[ing] any credible evidence”.
'The UAE must face accountability, not to be rewarded with the top global leadership role of the UN'
- Sudan's permanent mission to the UN
When CNN asked in July 2024 whether she rejected UN investigators’ findings of “credible” evidence of Emirati support for the RSF, Nusseibeh said: “Absolutely”, adding that such allegations were “categorically untrue”.
Hundreds of thousands are estimated to have been killed since the outbreak of the conflict in April 2023, with millions more displaced.
Nusseibeh travelled to Strasbourg in November 2025 to lobby the European Parliament to remove references to the UAE’s role in Sudan from an EU resolution condemning atrocities. Nusseibeh did not respond to MEE’s request for comment.
As secretary general, Nusseibeh would be bound by the UN Charter to act independently of all governments, including Abu Dhabi.
But Ammar Mahmoud, a top Sudanese diplomat at the UN, said her outright rejection of the UN investigators' findings on Emirati involvement signalled she would not undertake the role with due impartiality.
“I highly doubt that she will ever form any investigative committees about the UAE’s role in Sudan,” Mahmoud told MEE.
“Nor do I think that she will accurately reflect, in her engagements with world leaders as secretary general, the true nature of the conflict in Sudan and her country’s role in it.”
Sudan accused the UAE of complicity in genocide in Sudan at the International Court of Justice in March 2025, but the case was dismissed two months later, as the UAE had not fully acceded to the Genocide Convention, meaning the court lacked the formal authority to rule on the matter.
Israeli ties
Concerns have also been raised about Nusseibeh’s ability to mediate the Israel-Palestine conflict as secretary general, and her willingness to hold Israeli leaders to account for alleged war crimes in Gaza, where Israel has killed over 74,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
Although the UAE has repeatedly voted against Israel at the General Assembly, Abu Dhabi and Israel have had close ties since they signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, a landmark deal championed by Nusseibeh that ended decades of diplomatic boycott.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a security presentation outlining an “Israel-UAE Hexagon Alliance”, which also appeared to name Sudan’s RSF as a “friendly” party.
If selected, Nusseibeh, who is of Palestinian heritage, would be the first woman to lead the UN and its second Arab secretary general, despite pressure for the next officeholder to come from Latin America, given conventions about regional rotation.
Nusseibeh’s entry into the race last week followed six informal straw polls in which no candidate secured the required backing of all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council: the UK, the US, Russia, China, and France.
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