The head of the United Nations organization for the Turk’s freedom has won again despite the opposition of the US and Israel | United Nations News

Austrian lawyer Volker Turk has become the first UN chief to complete two four-year terms since his inauguration.

Volkur Turk, the United Nations human rights chief who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and across the region, has won votes for his second term.

UN member states voted 144-10, with 13 abstentions on Friday to keep Turk in his post as UN Human Rights chief. His term of office will end on October 11, but he will now serve another four years.

When he completes his second term, he will be the first UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to do so since he was established in 1993. The United States, Israel, Russia, North Korea and six others opposed his decision.

Turk said he was “very grateful” to be re-elected.

“Human rights are the solution to the chaos and defeat of today. I will give everything I can for the freedom of everyone, everywhere,” he wrote in his social media post.

The rights leader has angered many in Israel by criticizing the country’s brutal war in Gaza, its invasion of Lebanon, and the “shameful” lack of responsibility for the suppression of freedoms in the Palestinian territories.

A lawyer by training, Turk has spent most of his career working for the UN, including posts at UNHCR, the UN’s volunteer agency for refugees.

He has repeatedly urged Israel to comply with international human rights laws, and said that the government is responsible for the human rights violations it is doing.

The European Union’s delegation to the UN welcomed Turk’s re-election, saying it hoped to work with his office “to promote and protect human rights around the world”.

Criticism of the US and Israel

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel criticized the history of the Turk, saying that under his leadership, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “has erased the atrocities that happened on October 7, the misuse of funds, and showed the neutrality of the UN instead of the political corruption of fraud”.

Israel has been accused by leading rights groups and UN experts of violating numerous rights, including to commit a conspiracy in Gaza.

Jeff Bartos, the representative of the United States at the UN Management and Reform, said that the United Nations human rights organization has been losing credibility for many years, that Turk “led to his death” when Friday’s vote “kicked the bucket”.

The US has been Israel’s biggest supporter and arms supplier.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been criticized for the way he voted for Turk’s second term.

Guterres, whose term expires in December, sent letters to UN bodies earlier this month informing them of his intention to re-elect Turk, and they voted a few weeks later.

The US State Department called the quick vote “another example of the corruption and incompetence of the UN”, saying that Turk “ignored the actual brutality and instead followed a radical ideology.”