Dec 15, 2022
Peter Jones is a professor of international relations at the University of Ottawa and director of the Ottawa Dialogues, an organization that develops "backchannel" communications between nations that are in conflict. Often the two sides take the public position that they will "never negotiate" with each other, while in fact they are conducting unofficial meetings – or at least authorizing citizens to carry out such meetings. This is "track two diplomacy." The term also can apply to the kind of contacts that civil society organizations conduct without authorization, or even against the wishes of their governments, because they wish to lower the acrimony between the two sides and create conditions that in the future may allow negotiations to take place. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld,ca/episode-524-track-two-diplomacy.