All 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 on November 27, 2001 to negotiate an end to the wars in Afghanistan. Warlords, exiled monarchists, intellectuals, and enemies so fierce, some had already been trying to kill each other for decades. But a key element was missing; The Taliban was not invited. Australian Iranian investigative journalist and author Soraya Lennie got the story from some of the negotiators who were in the room ..read more

We 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 beginning, to try to understand why some of the world’s smartest and most experienced negotiators failed for 20 years to mediate a peace deal in Afghanistan ..read more

William 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 episode of the Negotiators, our last of the season, Ury describes his role in mediating some of the world’s most difficult conflicts. His forthcoming book, Possible, includes lessons from a long career as an international troubleshooter.  The Negotiators is a partnership between Doha Debates and Foreign Policy ..read more

William 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 episode of the Negotiators, our last of the season, Ury describes his role in mediating some of the world’s most difficult conflicts. His forthcoming book, Possible, includes lessons from a long career as an international troubleshooter.  The Negotiators is a partnership between Doha Debates and Foreign Policy ..read more

After 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 since the war in 2014 began. On today’s episode of The Negotiators, we talk to Yemeni mediators about how they have advanced the peace process and what they think is needed to end the war. First, host Jenn Williams speaks with Maeen Al-Obaidi, one of the most successful local negotiators in Yemen, about how she has helped facilitate hundreds of prisoner exchanges. Then we hear from Farea Al-Muslimi, a Gulf regional expert ..read more

The staggering violence between Israelis and Palestinians over the past month has rekindled a question long vexing professionals in the negotiating business: Why have efforts to mediate peace between the two sides failed again and again? To explore that question, we look back to an initiative 20 years ago known as the road map, which seemed to hold particular promise. Sponsored by some of the world’s major players—The United States, Russia, The United Nations and the European Union—the road map sketched out a two-year path to peace that included independence for the Palestinians and security a ..read more

You may have heard about the Colorado River negotiations that ended in May. In a monumentally important agreement, several U.S. states along the Colorado River agreed to cut water use. We will cover that deal in next week’s show.  But for today’s episode of The Negotiators, we hear about an earlier round of Colorado River talks between the United States and Mexico. These binational talks from 2007 to 2012 tell us something about resource scarcity and the delicate negotiations required to address the issue.  Bruno Verdini, a negotiation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol ..read more

The Colorado River provides water to about 40 million people in seven U.S. states, 30 Native American tribes, and northern Mexico. But because of climate change, the river has become significantly drier in recent decades. On today’s episode of The Negotiators, we hear how the U.S. states and Native American tribes reached a historic agreement in May to reduce water consumption by 13 percent—after an excruciating negotiation. This is Part 2 in our look at negotiations over the Colorado River. Reporter Luke Runyon, who covered the talks for NPR member station KUNC, is our guest on the show. He a ..read more

You may have heard about the Colorado River negotiations that ended in May. In a monumentally important agreement, several U.S. states along the Colorado River agreed to cut water use. We will cover that deal in next week’s show.  But for today’s episode of The Negotiators, we hear about an earlier round of Colorado River talks between the United States and Mexico. These binational talks from 2007 to 2012 tell us something about resource scarcity and the delicate negotiations required to address the issue.  Bruno Verdini, a negotiation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol ..read more

You may have heard about the Colorado River negotiations that ended in May. In a monumentally important agreement, several U.S. states along the Colorado River agreed to cut water use. We will cover that deal in next week’s show.  But for today’s episode of The Negotiators, we hear about an earlier round of Colorado River talks between the United States and Mexico. These binational talks from 2007 to 2012 tell us something about resource scarcity and the delicate negotiations required to address the issue.  Bruno Verdini, a professor of negotiations at the Massachusetts Institute of ..read more