World leaders discuss evolving political landscape in the Middle East

World leaders discussed the latest developments taking place in the Middle East and highlighted their implications at a session on the opening day of Doha Forum 2024 Saturday.The panellists at the session on *Conflict Resolution in a New Era included Qatar's Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs HE Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide, and India's Minister of External Affairs Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.HE Sheikh Mohammed spoke on the current state of negotiations between Israel and Palestine, saying that it has been going through ups and downs since the start of the war."We have seen on November 23 (2023), the deal was concluded to release the first batch of hostages in exchange of 250 Palestinian prisoners,” he said. "And since that time, we have been back and forth within the same process, within the same framework that we are discussing today.”HE Sheikh Mohammed noted that the situation in Syria is evolving rapidly."Our worry is that this will bring back the old cycles of internal violence, the civil war, and this is really threatening the integrity, the territorial integrity of Syria,” he stated. "It can damage and destroy what is left if there is no sense of urgency to start putting a political framework and trying to address the issue from a political perspective to find a sustainable solution.”Eide stressed that the establishment of the integrated Palestinian statehood is the only way to ensure peace and coexistence in the Middle East."We need a two-state solution,” the Norwegian minister said. "We want an integrated Palestine, compromising the West Bank and Gaza, the relevant parts of Jerusalem, you know, as was envisaged in the Oslo Accords.”"And the drama, the horror is so deep now that we cannot go back to 6th of October last year,” Eide said, referring to the events of October 7, 2023.He also noted that the world would not be able to solve the problems in the Middle East region without solving the Palestinian question.Dr Jaishankar stated that what is happening in the Middle East region affects all countries, including India."We have about 500,000 Indians who live in Mediterranean countries,” he said."We have a trade of about $80bn with the Mediterranean,” Dr Jaishankar continued. "Looking at the Gulf, we have 10mn Indians here and maybe about $180bn of trade.”"I think what's happening in Syria, what's happening in the larger region, what's happening in Gaza and Lebanon, in Iran, the combination of all of this, there is a larger regional instability which is actually growing month on month,” he added."It is impacting us. As a country on the other side of Asia, we are feeling the impact of this,” the minister said. "I mean, we are feeling it in shipping costs, we are feeling in trade disruptions.”"So today instability anywhere actually is a source of concern. There is no region you can say that is far away,” he added.The session was moderated by CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour.