“Towards a 2012 UN Conference on a Middle East Nuclear & WMD Free Zone” will be the subject of an open conference and workshops by invitation only at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London from the 24th to the 26th October.
The events take place at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy. The conference is staged at the Brunei Gallery and open to the public, free and no registration is required. You find more information at the website of SOAS.
The conference will be followed by a two-day workshop at SOAS, October 25th to 26th with active participation of the CSCME-Project and its partner, the Palestine-Israel Journal.

The workshops bring together experts from the region. They will discuss

• The Impact of the Arab Spring and the Role of the Arab Peace Initiative in Laying the Foundation for the 2012 Conference;

• The role of Israel and Iran in the potential success of the 2012 conference;

• After Fukushima, the place of nuclear energy programs in the Middle East and their potential impact on the nuclearisation of the region

• Review of relevant research centres in the Middle East that are dealing with arms control and WMD non-proliferation and nature of public debate on the topic in respective countries

• Concrete steps on the Road to the 2012 Conference

Many participants from the symposium at the Protestant Academy in Bad Boll in January this year will participate in both events.

The basic principle that civil society can and must make an important contribution to conflict solving, as long as the states do not see their way clear to do so, is as relevant in the region of the Middle East as elsewhere.

The planned civil society Regional Conference for Security and Cooperation is thought of as an on-going civil society body, consisting of experts and of NGOs from the region. They will form transnational networks according to the areas of work (for example for education, energy supply, transport network, common security) and develop autonomous regional cooperation from the bottom up. The conference is preparatory to a later conference between the states.

Initially the participants of the civil society conference shall be representatives of civil society groups from the core states of the region: Egypt, Israel, the future Palestinian state, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. In the further process further states might be included.

A first symposium by invitation only was held at the Protestant Academy in Bad Boll.

Please find the Call For Papers for the symposium and the documentation of the Bad Boll Symposium on the right hand side.