Araghchi Calls for Shift Away from Militarism Toward Sustainable Peace

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that military intervention cannot create security and coercion cannot bring peace, calling for a fundamental shift away from militarism and foreign intervention toward sustainable development, respect for national sovereignty and lasting peace. Addressing the “Calling for a Global U-Turn” conference at the 2026 Global Town Hall hosted by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia, Araghchi said decades of foreign intervention, military pressure and wars in West Asia had demonstrated the failure of military approaches to establish lasting security. He described the situation in Gaza and what he characterized as ongoing Israeli crimes as among the clearest manifestations of this pattern.

Araghchi warned that military force was increasingly being used not as a last resort but as a permanent means of reshaping the region’s political and security landscape. He said this trend risked normalizing aggression, institutionalizing escalation and turning destruction into a tool for pursuing political objectives. Referring to US and Israeli military action against Iran, Araghchi characterized the attacks as illegal and aggressive and said they took place without prior provocation. He also raised concerns over targeted killings of Iranian officials, threats against political figures and violations of national sovereignty, arguing that failure to respond to such actions could weaken the boundaries established by international law.

Referring to the reported killing of 168 students in an attack on a school in Minab, southern Iran, Araghchi said victims of conflict should not be reduced to statistics, stressing that every life represents a family and a future. He questioned how long the international community would tolerate such losses. Araghchi further argued that international law cannot be upheld selectively and that human rights cannot be considered universal if they are treated differently according to national interests. He called for effective and fair multilateralism rather than abandoning the multilateral system, saying global efforts should focus on restoring justice, protecting human dignity and creating conditions for sustainable peace.