Former UN Peace Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and André Azoulay, Counsellor to the King of Morocco and President of the Anna Lindh Foundation, are among the leading voices at the Restore Trust International Forum in Stockholm calling upon world leaders not to miss a historic opportunity to create the conditions for peace in the Middle East and wider Mediterranean region.

On the occasion of the International Day for Peace, and on the eve of President Obama’s joint meeting with Middle East leaders, civil society and media from over 30 countries of the Union for the Mediterranean gather in Sweden to debate prospects for peace and to present the outcomes of the initiative Restore Trust, Rebuild Bridges.

On the opening of the Forum Frank Belfrage, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Swedish Presidency of the EU, said: “It is beyond any vocabulary to describe the wealth of human resourcefulness represented by the 43 countries which together form the network of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue betwen Cultures.”

Addressing the delegates, André Azoulay, President of the Anna Lindh Foundation stated: “Across civil society, through our common action, we must create leverage for political leaders to help restoring a new momentum for a different peace in the region nursed with more parity and exclusive of double standards when addressing issues such as human dignity and respect. It is essential that we keep alive this new vision of peace, to work in a long-term perspective, and ensure that civil society can speak out within the new regional framework designed by the President Obama vision and the converging prospects of the Union for the Mediterranean."

Speaking at the Restore Trust, Rebuild Bridges Forum, Lakhdar Brahimi said: “I am personally inspired by the type of initiatives we have seen presented today by the Anna Lindh Foundation, initiatives which aim to restore trust between people, to move beyond the problems we all face within and across our societies and to ensure that people in our region can live in a dignified environment”
Restore Trust, Rebuild Bridges is a region-wide initiative for coexistence launched in the aftermath of Gaza by the Anna Lindh Foundation across the 43 countries of the Union for the Mediterranean and in collaboration with the UN Alliance of Civilizations, and the International Forum in Stockholm presented the initial outcomes of over fifty civil society projects launched in the last months with NGOs working at the grass-root level across the Euro-Mediterranean region as well as with Palestinian and Israeli civil society.

The final event of the Forum saw the official bestowing ceremony for the 2009 edition of the Anna Lindh Foundation’s Euro-Med Award for Dialogue between Cultures, featuring this year winner ’Combatants for Peace’, a joint Israeli-Palestinian civil movement, and the first runner-up ’History in Action’, a joint initiative with history teachers from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia.

Timed to take place on the International Day for Peace, the Forum is being prepared under the Swedish Presidency of the European Union by the Anna Lindh Foundation in collaboration with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the European Commission, the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations and Sweden’s National Museums of World Culture.

The Forum will be followed this week by the arrival of a delegation of the Anna Lindh Foundation's national networks in Israel and Palestine to launch two major cultural events with social actors and artists from the Mediterranean region with debate on themes of Mediterranean identity and the issue of mobility.

Read the live blog of the event on www.euromedalex.org/restoretrust/liveblog