Iran’s foreign minister calls for global shift away from militarism and war
Speaking at the 2026 Global Dialogue Forum, Abbas Araghchi urged respect for national sovereignty, equal application of international law and region-led security in the Middle East.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi used a speech at the 2026 Global Dialogue Forum to call for an international shift away from militarism, foreign intervention and selective enforcement of international law. He advocated region-led security in the Middle East and said dialogue, cooperation and respect for sovereignty were necessary for lasting peace. Claims about military actions and alleged violations were attributed to Araghchi and were not independently verified in the supplied evidence.
TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has called for a fundamental shift in international relations, warning that war, intervention, sanctions and coercion have increasingly become routine tools of foreign policy.
Speaking on Saturday at the 2026 Global Dialogue Forum, hosted by the Indonesian Foreign Policy Association, Araghchi said the world should move from militarism toward sustainable development, from interventionism toward respect for national sovereignty and from selective accountability toward universal justice, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.
Araghchi argued that decades of foreign intervention, military pressure and prolonged conflicts in the Middle East had demonstrated that military intervention does not create security and coercion does not produce peace. He said the normalization of war had reinforced a cycle of confrontation and continuing conflict.
Addressing the war in Gaza, Araghchi described the situation as a test of the international community’s collective conscience and responsibility. He referred to civilian deaths, forced displacement, collective punishment and the destruction of vital infrastructure, and said the consequences had extended to Lebanon.
Araghchi also alleged that U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran formed part of a broader pattern of aggression, targeted killings and violations of national sovereignty. These assertions were presented in his speech and were not independently verified in the source material.
He warned that failure to respond effectively to alleged violations would gradually erode the limits established by international law. He also referred to the deaths of 168 schoolchildren in Minab, saying that victims of war should not be reduced to statistics.
The Iranian foreign minister said international law must be applied equally and that human rights could not be universal if they were treated as inherent rights for some nations but conditional privileges for others. He argued that the answer was not to abandon multilateralism, but to establish multilateral institutions that were more effective and equitable.
Araghchi said lasting security in the Middle East could not be imposed from outside the region. In his view, regional countries should determine their own approaches to security, stability and development through dialogue, confidence-building, cooperation and mutual respect, without foreign intervention.
He concluded by urging governments to place human dignity and sustainable development ahead of strategic and geopolitical interests, saying the time for such a change was now.