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FILE – U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk speaks to the media during a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, May 13, 2026.<\/p>\n
Lee Jin-man\/AP Photo\/Lee Jin-man<\/p>\n
UNITED NATIONS (AP) \u2014 U.N. human rights chief Volker T\u00fcrk won a second term Friday despite opposition from the United States, Russia and Israel to keep him in one of the most controversial United Nations posts for four more years.<\/p>\n
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U.N. member nations rejected a U.S. proposal to delay the vote until the end of next week as well as a Russian proposal to extend T\u00fcrk\u2019s term just until the end of the year. The vote in the 193-member General Assembly to reappoint T\u00fcrk was 144-10, with 13 abstentions.<\/p>\n
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While he got strong support, the votes and speeches also reflected concern that Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres quietly nominated the Austrian lawyer this month after private consultations, with no public discussion, as the U.N. chief nears the end of his own 10-year tenure.<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrk\u2019s job as the U.N. rights chief, by its nature, is tricky: It requires speaking out against rights violations by the governments of the countries that make up the membership of the world body. For instance, T\u00fcrk has sharply criticized Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrk got wide support but loud pushback from the U.S. and Israel<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrk, whose term was supposed to expire on Oct. 11, has faced opposition from critics and some countries for his criticism of Israel\u2019s attacks in Gaza and his approach to China\u2019s crackdown on its Uyghur minority. None of T\u00fcrk\u2019s predecessors have served two full terms since the job was created in 1993.<\/p>\n
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U.S. deputy ambassador Jeff Bartos warned before the vote that reappointing T\u00fcrk would prove that the General Assembly \u201cis dysfunctional\u201d and that the vote \u201cwas quietly shoved onto the agenda at the last minute to bypass meaningful review.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMake no mistake, if this assembly tolerates procedural overreach, backroom deals and the misuse of U.N. posts, there will be consequences,\u201d he warned. \u201cThe United States will immediately reassess our engagement, participation and funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration already owes nearly $4 billion to the U.N. for its regular dues and for the separate budget for U.N. peacekeeping operations.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s deputy ambassador, Dmitry Chumakov, said Guterres had sown discord among U.N. members and accused T\u00fcrk of \u201cpolitical bias\u201d and promoting \u201cWestern geopolitical interests under the pretext of concern for human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Speaking for the European Union, Ireland\u2019s U.N. Ambassador Fergal Mythen reaffirmed the 27-nation bloc\u2019s \u201cwholehearted support\u201d for T\u00fcrk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Union believes that Mr. T\u00fcrk has demonstrably fulfilled responsibilities entrusted to him effectively and with integrity in an objective and non-selective manner over the past four years,\u201d Mythen said. He takes on another term when \u201cthe multiplication of obstacles and challenges and rights violations is relentless, and the promotion and protection of all human rights becomes ever more contested.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guterres, whose own second five-year term ends Dec. 31, sent letters to regional groups at the United Nations this month informing them of his intention to reappoint T\u00fcrk. The African group had no objection, but the Latin American countries had several, including Nicaragua, Argentina and Paraguay.<\/p>\n
Before the vote, Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry called Guterres\u2019 action to get a second term for T\u00fcrk the U.N. secretary-general\u2019s \u201clatest moral failure,\u201d saying on social media that the choice should be left to his successor.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAfter years of bias against Israel, the answer is accountability \u2014 not rewriting the rules,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n
Guterres is \u2018following the rules\u2019 on the reappointment, UN says<\/p>\n
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric says Guterres was following the 1993 resolution that established a U.N. high commissioner for human rights and allows for a second term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe secretary-general is doing things in a very transparent manner, following the rules and his authority,\u201d Dujarric told reporters Friday. \u201cConsultations were had with member states prior to this and with regional groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
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As human rights chief, the longtime U.N. functionary who worked for Guterres at United Nations headquarters in New York, T\u00fcrk has expressed concerns on issues in China as diverse as the fate of detained individuals \u2014 like artist Gao Zhen, lawyer Yu Wensheng and media mogul Jimmy Lai \u2014 and counterterrorism and assimilation practices that affect ethnic minorities including the Uyghurs in the regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet.<\/p>\n
Critics insist he could have done more to publicly follow up on a report issued by his predecessor, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, that said China\u2019s discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrk also has stopped short of joining independent U.N. rights experts who have accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians during its war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies those claims.<\/p>\n
Former head of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth said: \u201cThe biggest stain on T\u00fcrk\u2019s reputation is his utter abandonment of the Uyghurs.\u201d<\/p>\n
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T\u00fcrk has used both private engagement with Beijing and public advocacy to support human rights in China, his office said. Roth called that \u201can admission that he is doing nothing, that he\u2019s putting the plight of the Uyghurs on the deep back burner, and is just pretending to care.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chinese government denies the Uyghurs have been or are being persecuted. It maintains its policies in Xinjiang rooted out terrorism and religious extremism after sporadic bouts of violence rocked the region in previous decades.<\/p>\n
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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk speaks to the media during a press conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[9101,262,63723,38,37,63722,63725,63721,63724,3284,3285,3282,3281,55,21814,63720,19105],"class_list":["post-221791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-china","tag-dmitry-chumakov","tag-donald-trump","tag-israel","tag-jeff-bartos","tag-jimmy-lai","tag-ken-roth","tag-michelle-bachelet","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-russia","tag-stephane-dujarric","tag-turk-human-rights-chief-united-nations","tag-volker-turk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116977922605001428","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}