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OHCHR - Media Stakeout: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - 06 March 2026
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OHCHR - Media Stakeout: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - 06 March 2026

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STORY: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk remarks on the Middle East crisis

TRT: 02:47

SOURCE: OHCHR / UNOG
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: English/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9 
DATELINE:  6 March 2026 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND 

SHOTLIST 

  1. Exterior shot: Palais des Nations
  2. Interior shot: Stake out position Assembly Hall
  3. SOUNDBITE (English)— Volker Türk, High Commissioner for UN Human Rights (OHCHR): “The crisis sparked in the Middle East one week ago following US and Israeli attacks on Iran, and Iran’s counterattacks, has been spreading like wildfire. It is causing significant damage in Iran, Israel and at least a dozen other countries, mostly in the Gulf, with risks of major economic and environmental ramifications across the world.”
  4. Cut aways: Stake out position Assembly Hall
  5. SOUNDBITE (English)— Volker Türk, High Commissioner for UN Human Rights (OHCHR): “The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze – but we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings and escalation, only fueling it further. Confusion has also been sown around international law – and some have openly derided the fundamental values of our common humanity.”
  6. Cut aways: Stake out position Assembly Hall
  7. SOUNDBITE (English)— Volker Türk, High Commissioner for UN Human Rights (OHCHR): “I urge the States involved to take immediate steps to de-escalate – to give peace a chance. And on other States to call clearly on those involved to pull back. Cool heads must prevail if we are to prevent further terror and devastation for civilians.”
  8. Cut aways: Stake out position Assembly Hall
  9. SOUNDBITE (English)— Volker Türk, High Commissioner for UN Human Rights (OHCHR): “Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint. I am extremely worried about the latest developments following Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and Israel’s heavy counterstrikes, as well as its extensive displacement orders that have already forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. I call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.”
  10. Cut aways: Stake out position Assembly Hall
  11. SOUNDBITE (English)— Volker Türk, High Commissioner for UN Human Rights (OHCHR): “Given the magnitude of this crisis, I call on Heads of State and Government around the world unequivocally to commit to defending international human rights law, international humanitarian law and the UN Charter itself – we cannot afford for more powder kegs to ignite.”
  12. Cut aways: Stake out position Assembly Hall

 

STORY: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk remarks on the Middle East crisis

Volker Türk UN Human Rights made the following remarks at a press stake out on the current situation in the Middle East.

“The crisis sparked in the Middle East one week ago following US and Israeli attacks on Iran, and Iran’s counterattacks, has been spreading like wildfire. It is causing significant damage in Iran, Israel and at least a dozen other countries, mostly in the Gulf, with risks of major economic and environmental ramifications across the world,” he said.

“The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze – but we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings and escalation, only fueling it further. Confusion has also been sown around international law – and some have openly derided the fundamental values of our common humanity,” Türk said.

 

“I urge the States involved to take immediate steps to de-escalate – to give peace a chance. And on other States to call clearly on those involved to pull back. Cool heads must prevail if we are to prevent further terror and devastation for civilians,”

 

“Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint. I am extremely worried about the latest developments following Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and Israel’s heavy counterstrikes, as well as its extensive displacement orders that have already forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. I call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.”

 

“Given the magnitude of this crisis, I call on Heads of State and Government around the world unequivocally to commit to defending international human rights law, international humanitarian law and the UN Charter itself – we cannot afford for more powder kegs to ignite.”

 

ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact

In Geneva:

Ravina Shamdasani:  +41 22 917 9169 / / ravina.shamdasani@un.org

Jeremy Laurence: +41 22 917 9383 / jeremy.laurence@un.org

 

 Tag and share - X: @UNHumanRights and Facebook: unitednationshumanrights

 

Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Very.
It's good to see you all and I just want to make a very brief statement and then I'll take a couple of questions.
The crisis sparked in the Middle East one week ago following US and Israeli attacks on Iran and Iran's counterattacks, has been spreading like wildfire.
It is causing significant damage in Iran, in Israel, and at least a dozen other countries, mostly in the Gulf, with risks of major economic and environmental ramifications across the world.
The world urgently needs to contain, needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this place.
But instead we are only seeing more inflammatory varicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings and escalation that fuels it.
Further confusion has also been thrown around international law and some have openedly derided the fundamental values of our common humanity.
I urge the states involved to take immediate steps to deescalate to give peace a chance, and on other states to call clearly on those involved to pull back.
Cool heads must prevail if we are to prevent further terror and devastation for civilians.
Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint.
I'm extremely concerned and worried about the latest developments following Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and Israel's heavy counter strikes, as well as its extensive displacement orders that have already forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
And I call for an immediate cessation of hostilities given this, the magnitude of this crisis.
I call on heads of state and government around the world unequivocally to defend, to commit to defending international rights law, international humanitarian law, and the UN Charter itself.
We cannot afford for more powder kegs to ignite.
My office will continue to document and draw attention to the situation around this crisis, but we also must not lose sight of other very critical situations that must absolutely not be neglected.
Haiti, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sudan itself, the occupied Palestinian territory.
And just this morning we issued a statement on the escalating conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And there are many others.
And we will obviously work on making sure that we provide you with information and the analysis that that we have from the human rights perspective.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you, Commissioner.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
[Other language spoken]
Could you comment from an international perspective on your observations of the evacuation orders placed on the South of Lebanon, but also that here, the southern suburbs of Beirut in the past 24 hours?
[Other language spoken]
So on international law yesterday, the Israeli armies that the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was in line in the international law.
What what's your assessment on that?
And any information about the tightening of security surveillance of the Iranian people since verify what happened with the school in who was responsible and how many, if you have any details on how many people were held there and if you think the this or other targets are being selected by AI and what concerns we have around that?
[Other language spoken]
Look, first of all, on what's happening inside Lebanon, as I said, extremely worried about it, in particular the displacement orders that are almost blanket displacement orders.
They have actually asked for civilians to move beyond the Litany River, which is so forget about 100 and thousand villages that are affected as a result.
We have always made it absolutely clear that when you actually apply international military and also this type of situations, it can only be done if you have military necessity and the security of people in mind.
At the moment, with this blanket massive displacement orders, we're talking here about hundreds and thousands of people, we, our colleagues on the ground here everyday about the anguish that people face about not knowing where to go, not knowing how long it will take.
Obviously this raises serious concerns under international humanitarian law and in particular when it comes to issues around forced transfer.
The question around the killing of the supreme leader.
I mean, obviously from a human rights perspective, we are against any sort of killings, you know, very well our very clear legal stance on the death penalty, for example, or on extrajudicial killings.
So it's, you know, we are not going into the details of what international law would say, but from a human rights perspective, any killing of anyone is not in the interest of, of international human rights law.
And we, we need to be very clear about that as well on Mina, on the, in this absolutely tragic in incident.
I, I think we have all seen some of the images.
There are indeed significant concerns about the respect for international humanitarian law, especially conduct of hostilities, because that would require everyone when the when the conduct of hostilities happens, that particular measures of precaution, of distinction, of proportionality are taken.
When it comes to a school, obviously this is the civilian institution that should never be attacked.
[Other language spoken]
It requires, I mean, then there are questions around the type of weapon that was used or weapons that were used as well as the timing.
It happened at a in the morning.
And in all of these, these factors need to be taken into account.
What we have asked for is obviously prompt, transparent and and impartial investigations, which we understand has been announced by the United States of America.
We need this to happen very quickly and we need to also make sure that there is accountability as well as redress for the victims.
And we don't have more details because we are not present on the ground.
It doesn't have that there's an Internet shutdown.
And obviously we we hope that we would get more details.
And the onus is now really on those who had conducted these strikes to conduct this type of investigation on the, on the human rights situation internally.
Yes, we have also heard these reports about the tightening of the security.
We're very worried about it.
We saw what happened in January.
The human rights situation has certainly not become any better.
We're very worried also about possible executions that could take place, political prisoners, but generally population.
On the use of artificial intelligence, on the use of, look, on the use of artificial intelligence.
Obviously we don't know exactly the details of what type of systems are being used, but it is very clear from an international human rights perspective that you need to have human control over the exercise of weapons.
And if that is not the case, we are obviously very worried.
And you have us, you have heard us constantly make the case that autonomously lethal weapons, we don't know whether they were used, but autonomous lethal weapons are not at all in line with international human rights law.
And because they take human agency away and you need human control over whatever system you use.
And yes, we are obviously very concerned about the use of AI in weapon systems.
Do we have three more questions?
[Other language spoken]
According to Reuters, there is, it's likely that the US forces were responsible.
What exactly should be the next steps regarding the investigations and how do you personally feel as the UN human rights chief without the engagement of the US and Israel here during the Human Rights Council?
What message would you like to send specifically to these two countries?
This the two leaderships?
[Other language spoken]
Sorry.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Far from de escalating, the Trump administration seems to be poised to escalate the level of hostilities.
We're talking about a surge of military action in the next few days.
Have you or any of your associates at the leadership of the UN had any direct contact with the Trump administration that you feel has had any traction or help to influence the the conduct of hostilities?
And if not, who do you think could have that influence?
[Other language spoken]
Last question, from your point of view with this war have been preventable.
Look, when it comes to whatever outcome there will be of the investigations, we hope that they will be prompt and that they will be done in full transparency.
We also expect accountability to be served because obviously mistakes were clearly made and accountability is absolutely critical, but also redress and compensation as well as clear guarantees of non recurrence.
I mean it is a lesson to be learnt, a horrible tragic lesson to be learnt when girls are killed in this way.
And I hope that that there will be not only guarantees of non recurrence, but a a review of all the standard operating procedures when it comes to this type of issues and especially when it comes to conduct of hostilities.
What are the messages?
I mean, the messages are de escalate, go back to the negotiating table and find a way not to use methods of war and a military and military type actions as your means of achieving something.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I mean, there we have plethora of examples where this has actually ignited even further, not only powder kegs, but actually caused wildfires.
And what we see in front of us today is precisely that.
And it's uncontrollable, it's chaos, it's it's disarray, it's disorder.
And the world absolutely cannot afford this.
We need precisely the opposite.
We need to give diplomacy a chance.
We need to, we need to give negotiations a chance and we need to give peace a chance.
And we cannot just.
And that's why I'm buried also about the very bellicose rhetoric that we see.
I'm, I hope to go to Washington, DC later this month and we will see what this will bring.
I, I, we have obviously been in touch, but to be honest, I don't think it's in any way meaningful in terms of influencing the current trajectory.
So we need to make sure that it is others who have influence, who exercise this influence and make whoever continues this war very much aware that this has massive implications, not just for people around the world, millions of people, but also look at food security, for example, What's happening.
And that's also to the Iranian authorities.
It's to everyone.
We need to find ways to de escalate and to find a way out that brings people back to the negotiating table.
Was it preventable?
Of course, we always think that everything is preventable when it comes to this type of things.
I remember when I gave my global update on Friday morning on to the Human Rights Council, I actually warned about precisely what this, what this could unleash.
And unfortunately it has happened and it's extremely tragic.
It's tragic first and foremost for the people in the region, in Iran, in, in all the countries that are affected, for the civilians.
And we also need to make absolutely sure when we hear about the the the war language that it is ordinary people that everyday are suffering the consequences and it has repercussions that go well beyond the immediate region.
And we should never lose sight of that.
Thank you very much.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]