The Negotiators

In 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 Malley to reflect on the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and the fate of the Iran nuclear deal. In this wide-ranging conversation, Malley revisits why earlier talks failed, the realities shaping diplomacy today, and what future negotiators must understand if these conflicts are ever to be resolved.

The Negotiators is a podcast from Foreign Policy and Doha Debates—and a special partner this season, the International Peace Institute.

The 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 Plan of Action (JCPOA), known more plainly as the Iran nuclear deal. The deal was hailed as a breakthrough in much of the world, but it also had its critics. In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, and Iran went back to expanding its nuclear program.

Mohammad Javad Zarif was Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator during the talks. In this episode, Zarif offers a rare glimpse into the Iranian perspective, why the agreement failed, and what it would take to negotiate a new deal.

The Negotiators is a podcast from Foreign Policy and Doha Debates—and a special partner this season, the International Peace Institute.

When 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 small group of mothers across front lines to meet with the Tamil Tigers. Soon, Dharmadasa found herself shuttling messages between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, opening a rare channel of communication that helped build trust. In this episode, Dharmadasa reflects on loss, shuttle diplomacy, and why women’s participation in peace efforts still matters 25 years after U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325.

The Negotiators is a podcast from Foreign Policy and Doha Debates—and a special partner this season, the International Peace Institute.

In 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 central to peace and security, not sidelined from it.

In this episode, Naraghi-Anderlini tells the inside story of how she built a global coalition of women’s groups, developed a strategy for something that had never been done before, and helped secure the adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325. More than 25 years later, she reflects on what that breakthrough changed and why the fight to fully realize its promise is far from over.

The Negotiators is a podcast from Foreign Policy and Doha Debates—and a special partner this season, the International Peace Institute.

Developing 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 mitigate that damage back in 1991.

But 31 years later, a deal had still not been reached, and Aminath Shauna, the environment minister of the Maldives, was no longer willing to take no for an answer. Shauna describes how careful relationship building, an impromptu scuba diving trip, and a last-minute change in language helped secure the historic deal.

The Negotiators is a podcast from Foreign Policy and Doha Debates—and a special partner this season, the International Peace Institute.