Britannica Sources used in this answer

What happened at the Madrid Conference of 1991?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), wearing the keffiyeh, 1996.

The Madrid Conference, which opened on October 30, 1991, was a peace conference sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union following the Persian Gulf War. It brought together Israel and various Arab delegations to address long-standing regional conflicts.123

Regarding the Palestinian representation, the Israeli government refused to negotiate directly with the PLO. Consequently, Palestinians participated as part of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, represented by individuals from the occupied territories rather than PLO officials.12

While the conference itself failed to produce a substantive agreement, it was diplomatically significant for establishing three tracks of negotiation: Israeli-Palestinian discussions on interim self-rule, bilateral talks between Israel and its neighbors (Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon), and multilateral conferences. Ultimately, the Madrid Conference served as a vital precursor to the secret negotiations in Norway that led to the Oslo Accords.312