Terje Rød-Larsen became the President of the International Peace Institute (IPI) in 2005. The UN Secretary-General is the honorary chair of the board of the International Peace Institute. Concurrently, Terje Rød-Larsen is a UN Under-Secretary-General. He serves as a Special Envoy to the Secretary-General on the Middle East. Terje Rød-Larsen played a key role in 1992/1993 in establishing and facilitating a secret channel for negotiations between the PLO and the Government of Israel, which led to the conclusion of the Oslo Accords and the signing of the Declaration of Principles at the White House on 13 September 1993. He negotiated, on behalf of the UN, the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000 and established the UN line of withdrawal, the Blue Line. In his UN capacity he also negotiated later the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005 and represented the UN Secretary-General in the ceasefire negotiations during the 2006 war in Lebanon between Hizbullah and Israel.Nur Laiq is Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service. Author of Talking to Arab Youth: Revolution and Counter-revolution in Egypt and Tunisia. Nur was previously senior policy analyst and headed the Arab Youth Project at the International Peace Institute, which engaged with youth activists and politicians and facilitated policy dialogue on Middle East transition issues at the United Nations. Nur was social media content officer for the Indian National Congress Party in the 2014 general election campaign. She has also conducted research for Labour members of parliament in London. Nur has worked on foreign policy at the European Commission and with refugees in Damascus and New Delhi via UNHCR. Nur has given talks on political inclusion and youth politics in the Middle East and South Asian United Nations, World Bank, Columbia University, Oxford University and the Nehru Memorial. She received her MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University in 2005.Fabrice Aidan graduated from the Ecoles de Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), Paris, School of Management in 1998. He earned a degree in Arabic and Islamic studies from the Sorbonnes University. In 2000, he joined the French Foreign service and was assigned to the Department of North Africa and the Middle East. In 2002, he served as a Diplomat at the French Mission to the United Nations in New York. In 2003, the Government of France seconded him to the United Nations. In this capacity, he served first in Gaza/Jerusalem as the special assistant of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle Peace Process. In 2005, he moved to UN headquarters as special assistant and senior political adviser to UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, Terje Rød-LarsenTerje Roed-Larsen, dealing with the Middle East. In 2013, after ten years at the United Nations, he returned to the French Ministry of Foreign affairs as senior adviser to the Director of North Africa and the Middle East.
