Beijing UN Hosts Middle East Peace Media Seminar

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 http://www.un.org/News/dh/mideast/roadmap122002.pdf 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.

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