The emerging 28-points peace initiative functions as a public version of a Single Negotiating Text (SNT), a mediation technique. One of the most consequential applications of this method took place at Camp David in 1978, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter mediated between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
In any SNT process, placing a structured framework on the table in advance means the mediator is not merely facilitating discussion but shaping and largely controlling the negotiation space before the parties even sit down. That is the central strength of the SNT approach.
At Camp David, Carter used a confidential SNT and continually refined it through 23 iterations until agreement became possible. A related logic appeared in the 1982–83 “Walk in the Woods” episode, where U.S. negotiator Paul Nitze and Soviet negotiator Yuli Kvitsinsky stepped outside rigid formal positions on nuclear negotiations to craft an intermediate proposal that neither side could publicly initiate but both could evaluate.
The difference now is the public nature of the text. Once an SNT becomes visible, every actor evaluates it through domestic pressures and strategic narratives. Even so, the architecture matters. Although the distribution of incentives in the text appears uneven, the 28-points framework introduces linkages and options that neither side could realistically table publicly. What follows remains to be seen.
#SNT #negotiation #mediation
Alisher Faizullaev 