Middle East Peace and Security Forum 2025 Building Bridges in Duhok

Khoshnaw Rahmani, Jadetimes Staff

K. Rahmani is a Jadetimes news reporter covering politics.

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Image Source: MEPS

The Middle East Peace and Security Forum 2025 convened in Duhok from 17–19 November 2025 as a highlevel regional gathering focused on deescalation, reconstruction, and cooperative security arrangements. Hosted at the American University of Duhok, the sixth edition brought together political leaders, security officials, civilsociety figures, and international experts to address immediate crises and to design durable mechanisms for regional stability.

Why this forum mattered

MEPS 2025 was notable for its scale, its neutral venue in the Kurdistan Region, and for the unprecedented public presence of senior Kurdish leaders from multiple parts of the Kurdish political map. The forum’s framing—“Crisis Management in the New Middle East”—and its mix of technical workshops and highlevel plenaries created a space where politically sensitive issues could be discussed in operational terms rather than as headline diplomacy.

Attendance and the Kurdish presence

The forum’s official schedule and contemporaneous coverage confirm the attendance of senior Iraqi and Kurdish figures, including Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia alSudani and leading Kurdish politicians such as Masoud Barzani, Nechirvan Barzani, and Masrour Barzani, alongside other regional actors and international participants. The visible participation of Kurdish leaders from different political constituencies—Northern, Southern, and Western Kurdish arenas—was an unprecedented public alignment at a regional forum hosted in Duhok and signalled a coordinated Kurdish engagement with regional diplomacy.

Scale, participation, and institutional hosts

Organisers reported participation by more than one hundred regional and international delegates representing governments, security institutions, academic centres, and civil society, with the American University of Duhok serving as the principal host and logistical hub for plenaries and workshops. The forum’s program combined plenary sessions, thematic workshops, and bilateral side meetings designed to move from diagnosis to technical solutions on humanitarian access, border management, and reconstruction planning.

Agenda and concrete deliverables

MEPS 2025 prioritized operational outcomes over symbolic declarations. The agenda included sessions on regional security architecture, refugee and displacement management, economic reconstruction, counterterrorism cooperation, and mechanisms for sustained political dialogue. The forum produced nonbinding communiqués and established working groups tasked with followup on specific technical deliverables: a timetable for workinggroup meetings, a shared humanitarian data platform, coordinated demining proposals, and proposals for joint bordermanagement pilots to be developed over the next twelve months.

Daybyday timeline and key moments

• 17 November 2025 Opening — The forum opened with a plenary on inclusive dialogue and crisis governance; Kurdish delegations participated in a roundtable on minority rights and reconstruction, and Masoud Barzani delivered a keynote address emphasizing dialogue and institutional cooperation.

  
  

• 18 November 2025 Workshops — The second day featured technical workshops on border security, humanitarian logistics, and economic corridors; multiple side meetings took place between Kurdish leaders and regional officials to discuss practical cooperation on crossborder trade and humanitarian access.

  
  

• 19 November 2025 Closing — The final day concluded with a closing session that issued nonbinding statements and set the workinggroup timetable, while organisers announced a ministerial followup meeting to be convened within twelve months to review progress on the agreed technical items.

Each day combined public sessions with private, technical consultations intended to convert political will into operational steps rather than immediate treaties or binding accords.

Political analysis: Kurdish unity and regional rapprochement

Two interlinked political signals emerged from MEPS 2025. First, the copresence of senior Kurdish figures from different political arenas projected a degree of public coordination that strengthens Kurdish leverage in regional diplomacy and reframes Kurdish priorities—humanitarian access, reconstruction, minority protections, and crossborder trade—as regional issues rather than solely internal matters. Second, the forum illustrated a broader trend of pragmatic rapprochement among Middle Eastern actors: state representatives and nonstate Kurdish leaders engaged in a neutral, securityfocused setting, indicating a willingness to prioritize stability and economic recovery over rigid diplomatic taboos.

Operational pathways and the mechanics of followthrough

MEPS 2025 deliberately emphasised procedural mechanisms to ensure followthrough. The working groups are tasked with producing technical plans and timelines on demining, humanitarian datasharing, joint infrastructure planning, and coordinated border patrol pilots. Success will depend on measurable milestones: whether working groups meet deadlines, whether technical agreements are implemented at local levels, and whether incidents of crossborder tension decline in areas targeted for cooperation. The forum’s organisers and participating institutions committed to a ministerial review within twelve months to assess progress and to adjust technical plans as needed.

Risks, constraints, and political sensitivities

Several constraints could impede implementation. Domestic political shifts in participating states, competing regional agendas, and security incidents could derail cooperation. The forum’s nonbinding outputs mean that political will must be sustained through institutionalised mechanisms and transparent reporting. Additionally, the inclusion of diverse Kurdish actors raises expectations among constituencies that may be difficult to meet quickly; managing those expectations requires clear timelines, measurable indicators, and visible early wins in humanitarian logistics or infrastructure projects to build momentum.

Broader implications for regional diplomacy and security architecture

If MEPS 2025’s working groups deliver operational results, the forum could become a model for depoliticised, technical diplomacy in the Middle East—an approach that uses neutral academic or civic hosts to convene state and nonstate actors around shared problems. This model can reduce stigma around engagement, create confidencebuilding measures, and open pathways for incremental cooperation on issues such as refugee returns, crossborder trade, and counterterrorism intelligence sharing. The Duhok forum’s success would therefore be measured less by headline agreements and more by the durability of the institutional mechanisms it created and by tangible improvements in humanitarian and security outcomes on the ground.

Recommendations for monitoring and evaluation

To ensure accountability and to translate commitments into practice, the following monitoring steps are recommended: (1) publish a clear timetable and deliverables for each working group with quarterly public updates; (2) establish an independent technical secretariat to track implementation and to provide capacity support for local authorities; (3) prioritise pilot projects with measurable outputs (e.g., number of demined hectares, volume of crossborder humanitarian shipments, joint patrols conducted); and (4) convene the promised ministerial followup within twelve months with a public progress report to maintain political momentum. These measures will help convert the forum’s goodwill into durable institutional cooperation.

Final Thoughts

The Middle East Peace and Security Forum 2025 in Duhok combined symbolic significance with practical ambition. The unprecedented public participation of senior Kurdish leaders alongside national and regional figures signalled a new phase of engagement for Kurdish priorities within multilateral settings, while the forum’s technical focus created concrete pathways for cooperation on humanitarian, security, and reconstruction challenges. The real test now is implementation: whether the working groups meet their deadlines, whether pilot projects produce visible benefits, and whether the ministerial followup sustains political will. If those conditions are met, MEPS 2025 could mark a meaningful step toward more institutionalised, crossborder problemsolving in a region long defined by fragmentation and episodic diplomacy.