On Sunday, September 17, 2017 IPI held its twelfth Ministerial Dinner on the Middle East in its Trygve Lie Center for Peace, Security, and Development. The working dinner drew the participation of foreign ministers, United Nations officials, special representatives of the Secretary-General to countries in the region, heads of humanitarian agencies and other high level representatives from the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and beyond.

The event was chaired by Terje Rød-Larsen, President of IPI, and co-hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Luxembourg, represented respectively by Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and Olivier Maes, Luxembourg’s Political Director.

In a roundtable conversation, conducted under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, participants exchanged views on the changing landscape in the Arab world, including Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, and the large displacement of people in the region and the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe.

Attendees included the foreign ministers of Belgium, Finland, France, Kuwait, Jordan, Norway, Oman, Poland, and Sweden.

Also present were Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States; Turki Al-Faisal, Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies; Yousef bin Ahmad Al-Othaimeen, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; Abdulaziz Aluwaisheg, Assistant Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council; Jeffrey Feltman, UN Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs; Jean-Marie Guéhenno, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group; Peter Maurer, President of the International Red Cross; David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee; Kevin Rudd, President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former Prime Minister of Australia; James Tisch, CEO of the Loews Corporation; Eric Gertler, Co-Chairman and Co-Publisher of the New York Daily News and CEO of Ulysses Ventures; and Michael Doyle, Director of the Columbia Global Policy Initiative and Chair of the International Peace Institute.