About this podcast
Conflicts don’t just get resolved on their own. Most are resolved through a grueling process of give and take, usually behind closed doors. On the podcast The Negotiators, Doha Debates is partnering with Foreign Policy to put listeners in the room. Each episode features the mediators behind the world's most challenging negotiations. You’ll hear about a nuclear standoff, a hostage crisis, a gang mediation, and much more -- successes and failures that shaped people’s lives.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 53 episodes
- Why Diplomacy Fails: Israel-Palestine and the Iran Nuclear Deal · 34 min · Season 5 Episode 9In a special season-ending bonus episode recorded live at Doha Forum, International Peace Institute President Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein sits down with former U.S. negotiator Rob…
- How Iran and the U.S. Found Common Ground—and Lost It Again · 31 min · Season 5 Episode 8The United States and Iran have sparred for decades. But in 2015, during President Barack Obama’s second term, the two countries successfully negotiated the Joint Comprehensive…
- How a Sri Lankan Mother Became an Unlikely Negotiator for Peace · 39 min · Season 5 Episode 7When her son went missing in Sri Lanka’s civil war, Visaka Dharmadasa began organizing other families of missing soldiers. What started as a search for answers led her and a…
- Negotiating a Place for Women at the Peace Table · 38 min · Season 5 Episode 6In 2000, Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini arrived in New York with a simple yet radical idea: to lobby the U.N. Security Council from the outside and ensure women were recognized as…
- How a Small Island Nation Pushed for a Deal on Loss and Damage · 41 min · Season 5 Episode 5Developing countries are the least responsible for climate change, but they are the most affected by it. That’s why the Alliance of Small Island States first proposed a fund to…
- Negotiating Gaza: From Hostage Deal to Cease-Fire · 52 min · Season 5 Episode 4Last week, we heard about a negotiation at the U.N. Security Council that led to a brief pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas in November 2023. As part of the pause in…
- Before the Cease-Fire, Malta Negotiated a ‘Humanitarian Pause’ to the War in Gaza · 35 min · Season 5 Episode 3In late 2023, a few weeks after the start of the war in Gaza, the United Nations Security Council was at odds over how to respond. Any one of the council’s permanent members can…
- Inside the ‘Impossible’ Deal That Averted an Environmental Disaster in Yemen · 37 min · Season 5 Episode 2For decades, the FSO Safer had been used to store oil off the coast of Yemen. But when the Houthis took control of the capital city of Sanaa in 2014, the government-owned tanker…
- How 193 Countries Agreed on the Crime of Aggression · 40 min · Season 5 Episode 1When the International Criminal Court was established in 1998, the crime of aggression was identified as the supreme international crime. But countries couldn’t come to an…
- Coming Soon: The Negotiators Season 5 · 2 min · Season 5The Negotiators is back with a new host and all new stories from some of the world's most dramatic negotiations. Journalist Femi Oke takes us behind the scenes at a luxury resort…
- The Afghan Impasse, Part 7: Talking to the Taliban · 29 min · Season 4 Episode 7Since taking power, the Taliban have cracked down on human rights and deprived Afghan women and girls of fundamental freedoms. The outlook for productive engagement is dim. Yet…
- The Afghan Impasse, Part 6: Digital Dunkirk · 37 min · Season 4 Episode 6Once it became clear that U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan, the situation on the ground turned to panic. In August 2021, radio reporter Shirin Jaafari found herself in the…
- The Afghan Impasse, Part 5: The Envoy Speaks · 34 min · Season 4 Episode 5When a diplomatic deal goes bad, the blame usually falls on the politicians. Often, we don’t even remember the names of the negotiators. But in the wake of the return of the…
- The Afghan Impasse, Part 4: History Repeats · 39 min · Season 4 Episode 4As soon as the Doha Agreement was signed, the clock started counting down to May 1, 2021—the day the United States had agreed to withdraw all troops. That gave the Afghan…
- The Afghan Impasse, Part 3: The Art of the (Separate) Deal · 28 min · Season 4 Episode 3As a candidate for the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump vowed to end the war in Afghanistan. But seven months after his inauguration, he changed his mind, saying that the United…
- The Afghan Impasse, Part 2: Secret Talks · 33 min · Season 4 Episode 2By 2006, the United States and the Afghan Republic had been fighting the Taliban for five years. Neither side was poised to win. That’s when U.S. political scientist Barnett…
- The Afghan Impasse, Part 1: Original Sin · 36 min · Season 4 Episode 1All manner of the rich and powerful have passed through the doors of the mountaintop Hotel Petersberg in Bonn, Germany. But perhaps never as motley a cast as the one that arrived…
- Season 4: The Afghan Impasse Trailer · 3 min · Season 4We all remember how the story ends, with the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban. But in this special seven-episode season of The Negotiators, we’re going back to the…
- The Maestro of Mediation · 49 min · Season 3 Episode 10William Ury is one of the most famous negotiation experts in the world. He co-wrote the classic book Getting to Yes and co-founded Harvard’s Program on Negotiation. On today’s…
- From Humanitarian Catastrophe to Peace in Yemen? · 38 min · Season 3 Episode 9After nine years of war in Yemen, a peace deal finally seems at hand. Representatives of the Houthis met with the Saudis in Riyadh in September, in their first official visit…
