Geneva Middle East Conference

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The Geneva Middle East Conference of December 21, 1973 was a diplomatic initiative to enable negotiations on the implementation of Resolution 338 of the UN Security Council between the main actors of the Middle East conflict , initiated by the American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger . The foreign ministers of Jordan , Egypt and Israel were involved ; The UN Secretary General was chairman, the United States and the Soviet Union were assessors . Syria made the participation of the PLO a condition for participation and, like Lebanon, stayed away from the conference when the demand was not met as a result of resistance from Israel and the United States.

The meeting ended with an adjournment after the first day and the reading of the opening speeches, but it still had more lasting effects on the structures of the Middle East conflict . It established the United States as the main mediator between the conflicting parties after the end of the Vietnam War and weakened the position of the Soviet Union. It also served as a model for later conferences, especially for the 1991 Madrid Conference .

As a direct result of the diplomatic process triggered by the Geneva Middle East Conference and Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, an agreement on the mutual withdrawal of troops was signed between Syria and Israel in 1974 and the Interim Agreement on Sinai between Egypt and Israel in 1975. However, these negotiation channels became largely obsolete with the new dynamic triggered by Sadat 's trip to Israel in 1977 .

literature

  • Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, Neil Caplan: Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace. Patterns, Problems, Possibilities. 2nd Edition. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2010, ISBN 978-0-253-22212-1 , pp. 21-22, 96-98.
  • William B. Quandt: Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 , Third Edition. Washington, Brookings, 2005, ISBN 978-0-520-24631-7 , pp. 140-141.
  • Saadia Touval: The Peace Brokers. Mediators in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1979. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1982, ISBN, pp. 238-241.