Neil Kritz previews the pending agreement to heal a decade of division between Hamas and Fatah, and explains what effects the reconciliation might have on the larger Middle East Peace Process.
On Peace is a weekly podcast sponsored by USIP and Sirius XM POTUS. Each week, USIP experts tackle the latest foreign policy issues from around the world.
The meeting between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida earlier this month — the first bilateral summit between South Korean and Japanese leaders in over a decade — was welcomed by both sides as a major step toward renewing relations. Despite ample common cause on issues such as regional security and economic growth, ties between the two countries have been strained in recent years over unresolved disputes stemming from Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea.
Abdoulaye Bathily, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Libya, recently announced his new plan for elections in Libya, which he hopes will take place later this year. But the plan itself was light on implementation, and after similar plans collapsed in 2021, the U.N. will need to learn from past shortcomings to ensure there is not only a solid basis for elections, but a strong foundation for what comes after as well.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s talks in Ethiopia and his announcement of new U.S. aid this week advance vital steps for building peace in the country and greater stability in East Africa. Yet those tasks remain arduous and will require difficult compromises on all sides in Ethiopia’s conflicts. U.S. and international policymakers face a tough calculation over how to mesh critical goals: restoring full trade and economic assistance to help Ethiopia meet its people’s needs while also pressing all sides to advance justice and reconciliation to address the atrocities committed and damage caused during the war.
Women have been both victims and combatants throughout Colombia’s history of civil conflicts. But it wasn’t until recently that they were included as active negotiators in the peacebuilding process. Viviana Sarmiento, a Colombian political scientist and researcher, discusses how Colombian women contributed to the design and implementation of 2016 FARC peace accords, the opportunity to bring gender-inclusive perspectives into negotiations with other armed groups, and what Colombian women can teach others around the world about women’s inclusion in peacebuilding.