The 2015 Bamako Agreement was supposed to usher in a new era of peace and stability in Mali. However, not only has there been little progress in implementing the agreement, but the security situation remains volatile. This state of affairs is all the more troubling given the international community’s mobilization in support of the Malian […]
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“Everyone is scrambling around trying to do the possible,” said IPI President Terje Rød-Larsen while reflecting on how an unlikely peace agreement, the Oslo peace accords, was forged between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993. Sometimes it’s easier to do the impossible, he said, “because you have the whole field to yourself.”Mr. […]
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On November 24, 2016, the government of Colombia and the biggest guerrilla group in the country, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP), signed a final peace agreement. This accord put an end to the longest armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere and to long and convoluted peace talks.What elements of the process […]
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The violence in the Middle East obfuscates the fact that there exists also a story of peace efforts across the region—a story of small successes, big frustrations, setbacks, and failures. Through these efforts, UN mediators have sought to achieve the often irreconcilable goals of ending violence while facilitating a political transition and reconciling the parties.
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After nearly thirty years without peace, the conflict over the region of Karabakh, which pits Azerbaijan and Armenia against one another, has been called a “frozen conflict.” But with deadly fire across the line of contact every year, it is more accurate to say that the settlement process, rather than the conflict, is frozen. International […]
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Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi appeared to be the perfect candidates to find a way out of the Syrian civil war. The odds, however, were stacked against them. The Syrian regime was prepared to do whatever necessary to survive, whatever the cost to the country. At the same time, the opposition was unwilling to accept […]
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Lebanon has long been a model of relative stability in the Middle East, but with economic, political and security strains on the country, Sigrid Kaag, United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL), said that stability is very fragile.“I often get very worried when we applaud and recognize Lebanon’s resilience,” she said, speaking at a March […]
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Evolution is better than revolution was one sentiment expressed on the future of the Middle East at this Global Leaders Forum with Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Successful societies come from an open-minded society that promotes religious tolerance and an economy that is rule-based, according to participants who are of the opinion […]
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On December 16, IPI Vienna hosted a meeting on peace polling with keynote speaker Colin Irwin of the University of Liverpool. Peace polls are public opinion polls designed to test a series of questions and seek to identify common ground on which a peace process can move forward. Unlike market surveys or binary polls designed […]
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In 2024, global military expenditures reached $2.7 trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). This represents a 9.4% increase in real terms over 2023, the highest…
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