Tarek Mitri is director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. Mitri, a Lebanese who once promoted Christian-Muslim understanding at the World Council of Churches, was a minister in the governments of Fouad al-Siniora and Saad Hariri, before being appointed in 2012 by then-United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon as his representative to Libya. In early September Mitri helped launch the Arabic version of a Carnegie report on the Palestinians, after which he sat for an interview with Diwan to discuss the role of the United Nations in the Middle East, to correspond with the General Assembly session later in the month.