Martti Ahtisaari Quotes

Trust-based mediation assumes accumulated and at times intimate knowledge shared by both the mediator and disputants.

I'm a mediator by training and inclination.

A mediator is an impartial outsider who tries to aid the negotiators in their quest to find a compromise agreement.

When we face problems or disagreements today, we have to arrive at solutions through dialogue. Dialogue is the only appropriate method. One-sided victory is no longer acceptable. We must work to resolve conflicts in a spirit of reconciliation and always keep in mind the interests of others.

Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal.

I'm interested in conflict and confrontation.

When you deal with your brother, be pleasant, but get a witness.

You have to listen to adversaries and keep looking for that point beyond which it's against their interests to keep on disagreeing or fighting.

The task of the mediator is to help the parties to open difficult issues and nudge them forward in the peace process. The mediator's role combines those of a ship's pilot, consulting medical doctor, midwife and teacher.

In human societies there will always be differences of views and interests. But the reality today is that we are all interdependent and have to coexist on this small planet. Therefore, the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences and clashes of interests, whether between individuals or nations, is through dialogue. The promotion of a culture of dialogue and nonviolence for the future of humankind is thus an important task of the international community. It is not enough for governments to endorse the principle of nonviolence or hold it high without any appropriate action to promote it.

My policy is trust—peace, and to put aside the bayonet

In order to have peace in the Middle East both sides are going to have to put away history and make a leap of faith.

According to the “ripeness theory,” every conflict reaches a point when the parties are tired of confrontation and determine it is in their interest to make peace. With practical steps, principled leadership, and encouragement from the international community, the peace process still represents a win-win for both sides.

Whoever said “Keep your enemies close” didn’t have many enemies.

What we have found is that we were the principal mediators in many cases between the Iraqis and their own security forces and their own government, and so you have to almost embrace that role.

I think with the beginning of any political administration, you have to build trust, and it takes time.

Direct talks is the only possible way to build trust and to resolve the conditions for a peace perspective between Palestinians and Israelis.

I'm a huge mediator.

Mediation is one of the most effective tools of non-violence. It can turn parties away from conflict, towards compromise.

It is far easier and more effective - and not just in terms of cost - to prevent conventional conflicts than to intervene after an eruption of violence.

Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will-or-what may be the issue of the contest. Speculation-peculation-engrossing-forestalling-with all their concomitants, afford too many melancholy proofs of the decay of public virtue; and too glaring instances of its being the interest and desire of too many, who would wish to be thought friends, to continue the war.

Accommodation is a willingness to maintain constructive relationship with others with whom one is in serious and even intractable disagreement. Social cooperation would come under impossible pressure if it always depended on strict agreement.

When we come to the table, we shouldn't negotiate right away. We should spend time walking together, eating together, making acquaintance, telling each other about our own suffering, without blame or condemnation. It takes maybe one, two, three weeks to do that. And if communication and understanding are possible, negotiation will be easier. So if I am to organize a peace negotiation, I will organize it in that way.

I'm tired of fighting...

To constitute a dispute there must be two parties. To understand it well, both parties and all the circumstances must be fully heard; and to accommodate the differences, temper and mutual forbearance are requisite.