The Negotiators
Conflicts don't just get resolved on their own. The Negotiators, produced by Doha Debates in partnership with Foreign Policy, takes listeners inside the world's most challenging negotiations. Each episode features the mediators behind nuclear standoffs, hostage crises, gang mediations, and more — revealing the grueling process of give and take that often happens behind closed doors. The show explores both successes and failures that have shaped people's lives.
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Why Diplomacy Fails: Israel-Palestine and the Iran Nuclear Deal
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,
How Iran and the U.S. Found Common Ground—and Lost It Again
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 t
How a Sri Lankan Mother Became an Unlikely Negotiator for Peace
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 b
Negotiating a Place for Women at the Peace Table
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
How a Small Island Nation Pushed for a Deal on Loss and Damage
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 c
Negotiating Gaza: From Hostage Deal to Cease-Fire
Last 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 the fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed to exchange captives. Israeli American hostage negotiator Mickey Bergman takes us inside the complicated set of negotiations that led to that exchange.
We also hear about the negotiat
Before the Cease-Fire, Malta Negotiated a ‘Humanitarian Pause’ to the War in Gaza
In 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 veto a resolution—and they often do when it comes to issues related to Israel and Palestine.
Malta’s Vanessa Frazier held one of the nine rotating seats on the council. Over the course of several weeks, Frazier came up w
Inside the ‘Impossible’ Deal That Averted an Environmental Disaster in Yemen
For 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 was suddenly located in Houthi-controlled territory. The tanker fell into disrepair, and by 2022, there was a real concern that the vessel could sink, releasing more than a million barrels of oil into the Red Sea.
David G
How 193 Countries Agreed on the Crime of Aggression
When 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 agreement on how the crime would be defined or how the court would exercise its jurisdiction. There simply wasn’t enough time.
Those questions were revisited 12 years later, in Kampala, Uganda. Host Femi Oke talks to Zeid Ra’ad
Coming Soon: The Negotiators Season 5
The 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 in Uganda, as government representatives gather to establish the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction to prosecute leaders for unjust wars. We'll go scuba diving through endangered coral reefs in the Red Sea with t
The Afghan Impasse, Part 7: Talking to the Taliban
Since 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 there may have been a window, in the early months after the fall of the republic, to do things differently. Researcher Ashley Jackson speaks to aid workers and activists involved in direct negotiations with the Taliban as w
The Afghan Impasse, Part 6: Digital Dunkirk
Once 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 middle of the effort to find safe passage for Najiba Noor, a 27-year-old Afghan policewoman who was the target of threats and harassment by the Taliban. For this episode, Shirin reconnects with Noor and speaks with other peo
The Afghan Impasse, Part 5: The Envoy Speaks
When 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 Taliban, a lot of people have blamed one man: Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation. Khalilzad was born in Afghanistan but had served in the U.S. government since the 1980s. He was at
The Afghan Impasse, Part 4: History Repeats
As 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 Republic and the Taliban 14 months to negotiate a power-sharing deal. That’s not a lot of time, even under the best of circumstances. Afghan American reporter Ali Latifi has an insider’s look at how friction within Afghan Preside
The Afghan Impasse, Part 3: The Art of the (Separate) Deal
As 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 States should “fight to win.”
A year later, with the Taliban controlling or contesting more territory than at any point since 2001, representatives from the Trump administration traveled to Doha, Qatar, to open direct negotia
The Afghan Impasse, Part 2: Secret Talks
By 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 Rubin received a phone call from a Taliban intermediary that would mark the beginning of a four-year, clandestine process of “talks about talks”—even as fighting was intensifying on the ground and as U.S. troops found and kill
The Afghan Impasse, Part 1: Original Sin
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 m
Season 4: The Afghan Impasse Trailer
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.
The Maestro of Mediation
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 tr
From Humanitarian Catastrophe to Peace in Yemen?
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 wit
Why Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plans Fail
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 worl
The Water Agreement That Helped Avert a Monumental Resource Crisis
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
How Negotiators Navigated the Thorny Issue of Water Rights Between Mexico and the U.S.
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
How Kofi Annan Mediated a Volatile Political Crisis in Kenya
Former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, who passed away five years ago, was one of the most famous diplomats of his time. On today’s episode of The Negotiators, we hear about Annan’s mediation of a Kenyan political crisis in 2008—which stands out as one of his most impressive acts of diplomacy.
A disputed election in late December 2007 spurred violence and displacement across Ke
Top Negotiator for Hollywood Writers Traces Steps That Led to a Deal With Studios
The Writers Guild of America struck a deal recently with Hollywood studios, ending one of the longest strikes in the union’s history.
Ellen Stutzman, Assistant Executive Director of the Writers Guild of America West, was the union’s chief negotiator in the talks. She is our guest this week on The Negotiators.
The interview, conducted by our senior producer Laura Rosbrow-Telem, is the most extens
Negotiating a Truce to End Gang Violence in Los Angeles
Gang violence in Los Angeles surged dramatically in the 1980s. Over a seven-year period beginning in 1985, more than 4,000 people died from gang-related clashes. That’s more than the death toll in some high-profile conflicts around the world, including the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
On the latest episode of The Negotiators podcast, we look at the Watts truce in 1992—a peace agreement between ri
The Lawyer Behind U.S. Women’s Soccer’s Equal Pay Deal
This bonus episode from the podcast The Closer is a complement to our recent episode about the U.S. Soccer equal pay negotiations. While the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team is among the most decorated teams in the game, until recently, its players were paid only a fraction of what the men took home.
On The Negotiators, you heard from Cindy Parlow Cone, the president of the U.S. Soccer Federatio
The Hard Road to Equal Pay in U.S. Soccer
For the first time in U.S. soccer history, the men’s and women’s national teams are getting paid at the same rate. That’s the result of a grueling negotiation that ended last year, led by Cindy Parlow Cone—a former professional player who became the U.S. Soccer Federation President.
On the latest episode of The Negotiators podcast, Cone describes how far apart the two sides were at the start and
How the Good Friday Agreement Ended Decades of Violence in Northern Ireland
Our podcast The Negotiators launches its third season this week with a look at one of the most famous diplomatic deals ever: the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
Jonathan Powell was UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief negotiator for the Good Friday Talks. He was also Blair’s newly appointed chief of staff. In an interview on the podcast, he describes
Coming Soon: Negotiators Season 3
The Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. U.S. soccer negotiations for gender parity. How Kofi Annan mediated a political crisis in Kenya.
The Negotiators podcast is back on Sep. 19 with all new stories from people resolving some of the world’s most dramatic conflicts. Hosted by Jenn Williams, the Negotiators is a production of Doha Debates and Foreign Policy.
ENCORE: What It Took to Negotiate a Nuclear Arms Treaty With Russia
President Vladimir Putin recently announced that Russia would suspend its participation in the New START agreement with the United States. Putin’s move puts the last remaining nuclear arms deal between the two countries into question.
Last season, we spoke with the chief U.S. envoy to the New START talks, Rose Gottemoeller. She shares the grueling process of negotiating that treaty—which was final
The Art of Hostage Negotiations—When You’re the Hostage
Earlier this year, a British Pakistani man took several people hostage at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas—including the congregation’s rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker. During the 11-hour saga, FBI negotiators posted outside tried to persuade the gunman to come out quietly. Meanwhile, another kind of negotiation was happening inside the temple’s walls: between the rabbi and the hostage taker.
This
Inside the Turbulent Negotiations Over Brexit
The negotiations that led to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union lasted more than four years. During that grueling process, three different prime ministers came and went in Britain, shifting positions and occasionally roiling the talks. The one constant was Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner in charge of Brexit talks.
This week on our podcast The Negotiators, Barnier t
Inside the Youth-Led Fight for Peace in Libya
The uprising in Libya that ended Muammar Qaddafi’s long reign in 2011 was supposed to provide a path to stability. Instead, the country descended into civil war, with regional powers vying for influence and resources. An election brokered by the United Nations last year was called off at the last moment and the sides to the conflict remain at an impasse.
But while official negotiations have stall
Negotiating a Criminal Justice Bill Across Party Lines
Criminal justice advocates have tried for decades to pass legislation to reduce the United States prison population. Yet somehow, at a moment when the United States felt more polarized than ever, lawmakers managed to agree on a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill during Donald Trump’s presidency. It was called the First Step Act and it reduced the sentences of thousands of incarcerated people
Chileans Wanted a New Constitution but Negotiators Failed Them
When Chileans were asked in a referendum in 2020 whether they wanted a new constitution, the response was overwhelming. The current one dated back to the rule of Augusto Pinochet, the military dictator who had stepped down more than three decades earlier. Nearly eighty percent of the population voted in favor of a negotiation that would lead to a new charter for the country.
But the negotiation p
What it Took to Negotiate a Nuclear Arms Treaty With Russia
In 2009, the last nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia was about to expire. The START agreement, and others like it, had helped protect people around the globe from the possibility of a nuclear confrontation between the world’s two superpowers. Barack Obama, who became president that year, was eager to get a new deal in place.
On the latest episode of The Negotiators
Negotiating with Insurgents in Burkina Faso
Military officers in Burkina Faso seized power last month, in the country’s second coup this year. In both cases, the main justification was leadership’s failure to curb violence from groups linked to the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. The insurgency has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced about 10 percent of the population.
This week on our podcast, The Negotiators, we tell the story o
How a Band of Activists Negotiated a CA$40 Billion Settlement for Canada’s Indigenous Children
For decades, Canadian activists have criticized the government in Ottawa for underfunding Indigenous communities, leading to various harms and hardships. The activists, led by Cindy Blackstock of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, sued the Canadian government in 2007, claiming that federal underfunding prompted First Nations children to end up in foster care in large numbers once r
Negotiating an American Journalist’s Freedom From Myanmar, Part 2
This is part two of negotiator Mickey Bergman’s story about the American journalist Danny Fenster, who was serving an 11-year prison sentence in Myanmar.
In the first episode, Bergman described how much work it took to get to the gatekeepers. In this second part, he and his boss, Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, are finally in Myanmar for the secret talks.
Negotiating an American Journalist’s Freedom From Myanmar, Part 1
Welcome back to The Negotiators, the podcast that brings you stories from mediators, troubleshooters, and negotiators around the world. The show is a collaboration between Doha Debates and Foreign Policy, hosted by FP Deputy Editor Jenn Williams.
We begin our second season with a dramatic prisoner negotiation. Danny Fenster is an American journalist who covered the coup in Myanmar in 2021. Months
The Negotiators Season 2 trailer
A nuclear arms deal with Russia. Reparations for indigenous communities in Canada. A hostage release negotiated by the hostage himself.
The Negotiators podcast is back on Sep. 27 with all new stories from people resolving some of the world’s most dramatic conflicts. Hosted by Jenn Williams, the Negotiators is a production of Doha Debates and Foreign Policy.
The Road to Repatriation
This week, we hear from Jussi Tanner, a Finish ambassador and special envoy who negotiated the release of some 30 women and children from detention in northern Syria.
How a Motley Group of Negotiators Freed the Chibok Schoolgirls
In 2014, members of the Islamist Boko Haram group abducted around 300 mostly Christian girls from a school in northeastern Nigeria, prompting outrage around the world and triggering an unparalleled social media campaign that included A-list celebrities and world leaders.
Despite global attention, it ended up taking three years to negotiate the girls’ release. Many of the girls had died by then or
The Long Road to Libya’s Election
Libya will hold its first-ever presidential elections on December 24th, after decades of dictatorship and years of civil war. The vote marks an important turning point for the country and is due in part to the creative diplomacy conducted there in recent years by the United Nations.
On the podcast this week, we hear from Stephanie Turco Williams, the former head of the UN Support Mission in Libya
Negotiating with the Taliban
The Afghan government spent nearly a year trying to reach a power-sharing agreement with the Taliban—until the group’s fighters swept into Kabul this past August. Those negotiations failed to produce a deal but, in retrospect, they tell us a lot about the Taliban, about why the country fell so quickly, and about what the future holds for Afghanistan.
For an insider’s perspective, we hear this w
From Gang Member to Gang Mediator
On the show this week, we hear from a former gang member in Chicago who became an interrupter—a person who intervenes in potentially violent situations to prevent people from getting killed.
Ameena Matthews was born into violence. Her father ran a gang and her brother was killed on the streets of Chicago.
Eventually, she left that world and joined a group called CeaseFire. The idea was simple:
Just How Close Did Israelis and Palestinians Come to a Peace Deal in 2008?
In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas came close to outlining a shared vision of peace between their two nations—closer than the two sides had ever come. But what really happened in those meetings? And why did they fail to clinch a deal?
This week on The Negotiators, we hear from Khaled Elgindy, who served as an advisor to the Palestinian n
Inside the Secret Talks that Led to a U.S. Prisoner Exchange with Iran
In 2019, when U.S. relations with Iran were at a low point, a non-governmental group called The Richardson Center mediated a prisoner swap between the two countries that brought home Xiyue Wang, a Chinese American graduate student.
Mickey Bergman, the group’s vice president and executive director, helped direct the talks. He describes the negotiation on this episode.
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Inside the Grueling Negotiations That Led to the Iran Nuclear Deal
The Iran nuclear deal is one of the most significant diplomatic agreements in recent history. This week on The Negotiators, we’ll hear the inside story from Wendy Sherman, who led the U.S. side of the negotiations as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She now serves as the Deputy Secretary of State.
This interview was adapted from FP's First Person podcast with Sarah Wildman.
Negotiating a Peace Deal is Hard, Implementing it is Harder
In 2014, the government of the Philippines signed a peace deal with Muslim separatists in the southern part of the country known as the Bangsamoro. The agreement brought a gradual end to a conflict that had killed more than 120,000 people over decades.
This week on The Negotiators, we hear from the government official who navigated the talks, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer. She was the first woman ever t
Inside the Paris Climate Agreement
These days, with the world divided as it is, it’s hard to imagine more than 195 countries coming together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet that’s precisely what happened in 2015 with the Paris Climate Agreement. The accord was a historic deal, but what do we really know about how it was reached?
On the first episode of The Negotiators, we hear from Tom Rivett-Carnac, who helped bring cou
Coming Soon: The Negotiators
The Paris Climate Agreement. The Iran Nuclear Deal. The Bring Back our Girls campaign. How did these deals get made? On The Negotiators, each episode will feature one person telling the story of one dramatic negotiation. Hosted by Jenn Williams, The Negotiators is a production of Foreign Policy and Doha Debates.
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