Knowledge Partner
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist
I sit with the re*red police officer reflec*ng on the latest poli*cal
breakdown and the disillusionment of our people. I find myself quo*ng a
colleague’s observa*on: back in
1998 the Good Friday Agreement
put new structures in place but it While peace agreements
did not facilitate the development require the nego@a@on of
of new rela*onships. And here we structures, sustainable
are, living in a predicament, a
peace requires sustained
society with peace but without
re co n c i l i a* o n . Howeve r, t h e aaen@on to the building of
aQen*ons of the interna*onal rela@onships.
community and of diplomats are,
quite rightly, elsewhere with bigger and much more deadly conflicts. So,
the task of reconcilia*on within Northern Ireland now seems to be a
challenge that we will somehow have to face on our own.
on Syria without diploma*c ac*vity involving Washington, Moscow, Riyadh,
Istanbul, Cairo and Tehran? Similarly with Afghanistan, diplomacy between
Beijing, Islamabad, New Delhi, Washington and Moscow will con*nue to be
an essen*al backdrop to any internal dialogue process.
21st century peace processing: away from the media*on table, there must
be geo-poli*cal planetary alignment. So, diplomacy must ojen lay the table
for media*on and help create and maintain an interna*onal environment
that is suppor*ve of talks. However, I would suggest that we need to
encourage a new kind of diplomacy. I would call it ‘media*ve diplomacy’. By
this I mean a diplomacy that takes on media*ve dimensions or character. For
example, awareness that, while peace agreements require the nego*a*on of
structures, sustainable peace requires sustained aQen*on to the building of
rela*onships.
Which brings me back to the coffee shop in Belfast and the winter gloom of
January.
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