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We who are diplomats, we are trained to deal with conflicts between states and issues between states.	en-1.png
And I can tell you, our agenda is full.	en-2.png
There is trade, there is disarmament, there is cross-border relations.	en-3.png
But the picture is changing, and we are seeing that there are new key players coming onto the scene.	en-4.png
We loosely call them " groups. " They may represent social, religious, political, economic, military realities.	en-5.png
And we struggle with how to deal with them.	en-6.png
The rules of engagement: how to talk, when to talk, and how to deal with them.	en-7.png
Let me show you a slide here which illustrates the character of conflicts since 1946 until today.	en-8.png
You see the green is a traditional interstate conflict, the ones we used to read about.	en-9.png
The red is modern conflict, conflicts within states.	en-10.png
These are quite different, and they are outside the grasp of modern diplomacy.	en-11.png
And the core of these key actors are groups who represent different interests inside countries.	en-12.png
And the way they deal with their conflicts rapidly spreads to other countries.	en-13.png
So in a way, it is everybody's business.	en-14.png
Another acknowledgment we've seen during these years, recent years, is that very few of these domestic interstate, intrastate conflicts can be solved militarily.	en-15.png
They may have to be dealt with with military means, but they cannot be solved by military means.	en-16.png
They need political solutions.	en-17.png
And we, therefore, have a problem, because they escape traditional diplomacy.	en-18.png
And we have among states a reluctance in dealing with them.	en-19.png
Plus, during the last decade, we've been in the mode where dealing with groups was conceptually and politically dangerous.	en-20.png
After 9 / 11, either you were with us or against us.	en-21.png
It was black or white.	en-22.png
And groups are very often immediately label terrorists.	en-23.png
And who would talk to terrorists?	en-24.png
The West, as I would see it, comes out of that decade weakened, because we didn't understand the group.	en-25.png
So we've spent more time on focusing on why we should not talk to others than finding out how we talk to others.	en-26.png
Now I'm not naive.	en-27.png
You cannot talk to everybody all the time.	en-28.png
And there are times you should walk.	en-29.png
And sometimes military intervention is necessary.	en-30.png
I happen to believe that Libya was necessary and that military intervention in Afghanistan was also necessary.	en-31.png
And my country relies on its security through military alliance, that's clear.	en-32.png
But still we have a large deficit in dealing with and understanding modern conflict.	en-33.png
Let us turn to Afghanistan.	en-34.png
10 years after that military intervention, that country is far from secure.	en-35.png
The situation, to be honest, is very serious.	en-36.png
Now again, the military is necessary, but the military is no problem-solver.	en-37.png
When I first came to Afghanistan in 2005 as a foreign minister, I met the commander of ISAF, the international troops.	en-38.png
And he told me that, " This can be won militarily, minister.	en-39.png
We just have to persevere. " Now four COM ISAF's later, we hear a different message: " This cannot be won militarily.	en-40.png
We need military presence, but we need to move to politics.	en-41.png
We can only solve this through a political solution.	en-42.png
And it is not us who will solve it; Afghans have to solve it. " But then they need a different political process than the one they were given in 2001, 2002.	en-43.png
They need an inclusive process where the real fabric of this very complicated society can deal with their issues.	en-44.png
Everybody seems to agree with that.	en-45.png
It was very controversial to say three, four, five years ago.	en-46.png
Now everybody agrees.	en-47.png
But now, as we prepare to talk, we understand how little we know.	en-48.png
Because we didn't talk.	en-49.png
We didn't grasp what was going on.	en-50.png
The International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, is talking to everyone, and it is doing so because it is neutral.	en-51.png
And that's one reason why that organization probably is the best informed key player to understand modern conflict — because they talk.	en-52.png
My point is that you don't have to be neutral to talk.	en-53.png
And you don't have to agree when you sit down with the other side.	en-54.png
And you can always walk.	en-55.png
But if you don't talk, you can't engage the other side.	en-56.png
And the other side which you're going to engage is the one with whom you profoundly disagree.	en-57.png
Prime Minister Rabin said when he engaged the Oslo process, " You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies. " It's hard, but it is necessary.	en-58.png
Let me go one step further.	en-59.png
This is Tahrir Square.	en-60.png
There's a revolution going on.	en-61.png
The Arab Spring is heading into fall and is moving into winter.	en-62.png
It will last for a long, long time.	en-63.png
And who knows what it will be called in the end.	en-64.png
That's not the point.	en-65.png
The point is that we are probably seeing, for the first time in the history of the Arab world, a revolution bottom-up — people's revolution.	en-66.png
Social groups are taking to the streets.	en-67.png
And we find out in the West that we know very little about what's happening.	en-68.png
Because we never talk to the people in these countries.	en-69.png
Most governments followed the dictate of the authoritarian leaders to stay away from these different groups, because they were terrorists.	en-70.png
So now that they are emerging in the street and we salute the democratic revolution, we find out how little we know.	en-71.png
Right now, the discussion goes, " Should we talk to the Muslim Brotherhood?	en-72.png
Should we talk to Hamas?	en-73.png
If we talk to them, we may legitimize them. " I think that is wrong.	en-74.png
If you talk in the right way, you make it very clear that talking is not agreeing.	en-75.png
And how can we tell the Muslim Brotherhood, as we should, that they must respect minority rights, if we don't accept majority rights?	en-76.png
Because they may turn out to be a majority.	en-77.png
How can we escape [having] a double-standard, if we at the same time preach democracy and at the same time don't want to deal with the groups that are representative?	en-78.png
How will we ever be interlocutors?	en-79.png
Now my diplomats are instructed to talk to all these groups.	en-80.png
But talking can be done in different ways.	en-81.png
We make a distinction between talking from a diplomatic level and talking at the political level.	en-82.png
Now talking can be accompanied with aid or not with aid.	en-83.png
Talking can be accompanied with inclusion or not inclusion.	en-84.png
There's a big array of the ways of dealing with this.	en-85.png
So if we refuse to talk to these new groups that are going to be dominating the news in years to come, we will further radicalization, I believe.	en-86.png
We will make the road from violent activities into politics harder to travel.	en-87.png
And if we cannot demonstrate to these groups that if you move towards democracy, if you move towards taking part in civilized and normal standards among states, there are some rewards on the other side.	en-88.png
The paradox here is that the last decade probably was a lost decade for making progress on this.	en-89.png
And the paradox is that the decade before the last decade was so promising — and for one reason primarily.	en-90.png
And the reason is what happened in South Africa: Nelson Mandela.	en-91.png
When Mandela came out of prison after 27 years of captivity, if he had told his people, " It's time to take up the arms, it's time to fight, " he would have been followed.	en-92.png
And I think the international community would have said, " Fair enough.	en-93.png
It's their right to fight. " Now as you know, Mandela didn't do that.	en-94.png
In his memoirs, " Long Road to Freedom, " he wrote that he survived during those years of captivity because he always decided to look upon his oppressor as also being a human being, also being a human being.	en-95.png
So he engaged a political process of dialogue, not as a strategy of the weak, but as a strategy of the strong.	en-96.png
And he engaged talking profoundly by settling some of the most tricky issues through a truth and reconciliation process where people came and talked.	en-97.png
Now South African friends will know that was very painful.	en-98.png
So what can we learn from all of this?	en-99.png
Dialogue is not easy — not between individuals, not between groups, not between governments — but it is very necessary.	en-100.png