The Vietnam War ended with the Paris peace talks. The United Nations, which formed the bedrock of the post-World War II consensus, was established through a conference in San Francisco. A generation before that, Versailles played host to the peace treaty that ended World War 1. But when the ceasefire agreement to — hopefully — end Israel’s war on Gaza was inked recently, it was done in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The negotiations that led to that moment took place either in Cairo, Egypt, or in Doha, Qatar. And this was no one-off instance. As the UN’s credibility declines as an institution that can deliver peace, and with trust in the United States of America and its traditional Western allies as peacemakers at an all-time low, new countries have emerged as the diplomatic nerve centres of 21st-century peace negotiations. With global power increasingly spread out among a range of countries, this decentralisation has also spawned a decolonisation of diplomatic clout in many ways.
When Afghanistan and Pakistan were recently locked in a border conflict, it was Qatar where their teams met to broker a truce. Doha, of course, is where the Taliban and the US also negotiated their agreement. Qatar has helped Russia and Ukraine negotiate the release of children captured by the two warring sides during their ongoing war. And it is now mediating between the US and Venezuela amid a bombing campaign by Donald Trump’s administration against Venezuelan boats that allegedly carry drugs. Turkey, meanwhile, negotiated the Black Sea grain deal between Kyiv and Moscow that allowed — at least for a while — Ukrainian grain to reach other countries during the conflict. And in 2021, the United Arab Emirates was the setting for a rare meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan. It is not just the Middle East either. China mediated a landmark peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023 and has also been trying to build bridges between Pakistan and the Taliban.
Absent in this set of new mediators is India. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi insists that it has a far more assertive foreign policy than its predecessors. It is true that Indian officials — and Mr Modi himself — have carried messages between warring parties in recent conflicts. Yet, given India’s rare stature as a country that is friends with almost all nations that have strained ties — Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, the US and Iran — New Delhi has carefully stayed out of any meaningful leadership role in mediating peace. This choice has its merits: as Qatar found out when Israel bombed it last month, negotiators themselves can sometimes get caught in the crossfire. But that caution also means that India risks missing its moment as a nation that can show, through its web of friendships, the ability to lead the world towards a more peaceful place. To win a place at the global high table, India needs to pull its weight — and not just when it is a directly affected party.