UN to co-host media seminar on promoting peace in the Middle East

Policy-makers and senior journalists from around the world will gather in Beijing next week for a two-day seminar, co-hosted by the United Nations and China, focusing on “the role of civil society in promoting a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

The international media seminar, which will be held next Wednesday and Thursday, is the 12th since 1991 in a series organized by the UN Department of Public Information (DPI) in response to General Assembly resolutions.

Its participants will include current and former policy-makers from Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, as well as senior UN officials, civil society representatives, regional experts and prominent journalists.

Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, will moderate the seminar and deliver a message to the meeting from Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The forum is scheduled to discuss how civil society and the media can promote Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and the overall peace process, as well as the current state of the Road Map peace plan.

The Road Map, which is sponsored by the Quartet of the European Union, the Russian Federation, the UN and the United States, calls for a series of parallel and reciprocal steps by the Israelis and Palestinians leading to two states living side-by-side in peace by 2005.