From Regional Shifts to Syria’s Path to Civic Peace
P4P at the Geneva Peace Forum 2026
Principles for Peace returns to the Geneva Peace Forum & Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, holding two high-level sessions on the choices shaping the Middle East’s future, both moderated by our Founding Executive Director Hiba Qasas: a discussion on regional political and security dynamics during the opening day, and a session on mediation and reconciliation in Syria during the mediation day.
Bringing together senior voices and experts from Europe and the Middle East, both offer an opportunity to hear regional perspectives and explore practical pathways towards cooperation and lasting stability. The discussions draw on the strategic experience and extensive regional engagement of our team, partners and network.
The Middle East at a Turning Point: Ceasefires, Transitions, New Alliances – and the Role of Regional and European Partners
Monday 12 October | 15:00–16:00 | Plenary room CICG
The recent Iran war has accelerated a regional recalibration. Gulf states have faced direct exposure; Iran and its proxies continue to destabilise parts of the region; and governments are diversifying security partnerships and shifting alliances in a more volatile environment. Disruptions to key trade routes underscore how quickly localised violence can spill over into wider economic and strategic shocks.
Within this shifting landscape, some ceasefires are holding in fragile ways, while others remain elusive or at risk of collapse. Amid these uncertainties, Syria’s transition stands out as a hopeful, yet demanding, case: regional re‑engagement and early political steps offer a chance for a more inclusive horizon, but real progress will depend on sustained regional and European partnership on security, reconstruction and confidence‑building.
This opening session will set the strategic frame for the event: which alignments are likely to endure, how regional calculations are shifting after the shock, and what forms of cooperation could contain escalation and enable stabilisation and recovery.
Towards a New Social Contract in Syria: Mediation, Reconciliation and the Path to Civic Peace
Thursday 15 October | 15:00–16:30 | Room TBC
Syria’s transition has begun to build a national architecture for reconciliation. The National Commission for Transitional Justice has been established and, within it, the National Reconciliation and Peacebuilding Committee is developing a national reconciliation strategy. These are substantial commitments, and they also define the harder question they cannot answer on their own: institutions can set a framework, but they cannot produce agreement between communities, or between communities and the state, and it is on that agreement that the new social contract depends.
This makes mediation a political instrument in Syria’s transition rather than a technical one. Years of conflict left divisions that will be addressed through sustained dialogue and locally owned mediation. Syria can draw here on a significant reservoir of insider mediation capacity that already exists across the country; the task is to connect local settlements to a broader national compact.
This panel, part of the Forum’s day on mediation, takes that logic in three steps: how a national reconciliation strategy can emerge from sustained consultation; how local mediation and civic peace efforts connect to that national framework; and what political, technical and financial accompaniment, including from Geneva’s mediation and convening architecture, can strengthen national ownership without substituting for Syrian-led efforts.
