Ávarp á friðarráðstefnunni Imagine Forum: From Cold War Lessons to Modern Challenges
Excellencies, distinguishes guests, dear friends.
I want to start by travelling with you 40 years back in time, to October 12th, 1986, where Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, walk out of Höfði House here in Reykjavík without an agreement. They have spent two days in intense negotiations and for a remarkable moment, these leaders of the world’s two nuclear superpowers have contemplated reductions in their nuclear arsenals on a scale that few had thought possible.
But in the end, they were not able to reach an agreement. At the time, it was thus understandable that many concluded that the Reykjavík Summit was a failure.
However, history’s verdict was different. The talks in Höfði paved the way for the INF Treaty that was signed the following year and for a broader process of arms control that would significantly reduce the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union.
I would like to propose that perhaps something more fundamental happened here. I believe that, for a moment, the future stopped looking inevitable. Maybe that was the true achievement.
The Cold War had developed its own powerful logic based on fear. Confrontation produced fear, that fear produced more weapons, and these weapons produced more fear. Entire political and military systems were based on this logic.
And yet, here in Reykjavík, in a small, unassuming wooden house overlooking the North Atlantic, two adversaries allowed themselves to imagine that, in fact things could be different – that it was possible to create a better future.
The first step towards this future was simply to be able to imagine it – it all started with being able to see it in one’s own mind.
There is a reason we call this the Imagine Forum. In international politics the word “imagination” can sound like a soft word. But I believe the opposite is true. The capacity to imagine something that does not yet exist – to envision a different world, and then to build it – is humanity’s greatest resource. If we have the vision, if we have the courage, if we have the humility, we can rewrite the story in front of us.
Every political achievement starts there and peace is no exception. Peace is not something that we can simply wait for. It needs to be conceived, negotiated, constructed and maintained. It requires patience and empathy, institutions and diplomacy, and above all it requires that we resist the temptation to think the future has somehow already been decided.
To me, that is one of the lessons of the Summit 40 years ago.
And if peace is something that we build, then peace is work. Pope Leo XIV put it very clearly in a recent address when he stated: “Promoting peace is an active task.” He also asked whether we are making the “creative efforts” needed to advance peace.
Two words stand out to me in the Holy Father’s message – active and creative. We devote enormous intellectual resources to the possibility of conflict. We develop doctrines and capabilities, construct scenarios, assess risks and prepare for uncertainty. And much of this is unfortunately necessary.
But peace demands intellectual resources as well. We must be honest here: Peace can ask us really, really tough questions. How can conflict be prevented before it begins? How can communication be maintained between adversaries? How can escalation be contained? Where can interests maybe overlap where values and ambitions do not? How can trust be gradually built where it has been completely eroded?
And from a Christian perspective, it asks something even more difficult: whether we are capable of recognising the humanity of those we oppose.
Of course that does not mean confusing the aggressor and the victim, or abandoning the right to defend ourselves and others, or that peace can be purchased at the expense of justice. No, it means refusing to believe that dehumanisation can ever be the foundation of stability.
Without justice there can be no durable peace. First, we must imagine what those under attack are going through, how do they muster the courage to fight for what is at stake: their way of life, their liberty, the right to exist as a nation and a sovereign country. Imagine a future where we are no longer able to voice our opinions, elect our government freely or love freely, where our own sovereignty would be questioned. We should keep this in mind as we continue to support Ukraine through a very difficult time.
But we also can’t find the way back to peace if we lose the capacity to recognize the humanity of those we oppose. That is one of the reasons diplomacy matters: it is our attempt to prevent conflict from determining everything that follows.
This is where imagination becomes essential. We can allow ourselves to imagine peace, but without actual work, it amounts to little but wishful thinking. On the other hand, work without imagination, without open hearts and minds, can easily leave us trapped within the assumed realities of the present – where a different future cannot be envisioned.
Therefore, peace requires both; the imagination to see another possibility, and the patient work to actually make it real. That was true in Reykjavík 40 years ago, and it is still true today.
But 40 years after the Reykjavík summit we find ourselves again in a period of profound uncertainty. Power is shifting. Conflicts are multiplying. International law, universal human rights and the institutions created to restrain power are under attack.
For Iceland, this is not an abstract concern. Small states depend on a world in which sovereignty matters, agreements are honored and rules do not only apply when they are convenient.
Russia’s full- scale invasion of Ukraine is a stark reminder of what is at stake when sovereignty and territorial integrity are violated. And the principle is universal. It applies in the Middle East, where civilians continue to pay the price of unresolved conflict and repeated violations of international law. And it applies in Sudan, where years of war have brought atrocities and mass displacement.
International law cannot protect only our friends or constrain only our adversaries.
At the same time, the nuclear danger has not gone away. Some of the structures built over decades to contain it are weakening. Earlier this year, New START expired and for the first time since 1972 the United States and Russia are without any legally binding limits on their strategic nuclear arsenals.
In a few moments, UN Under-Secretary Izumi Nakamitsu will speak to us about the urgent challenge of rebuilding trust in an age of nuclear risk and I will leave the detail of that challenge to her. Later today UN High Commissioner Volker Turk will tell us about the profound challenge of human rights protection in a world of growing conflict.
I would like to suggest that the task facing us right now is to not let these harsh realities narrow our political imagination. It would be easy to regard hostility as now being permanent. Arms races, protracted conflicts and human rights violations as unavoidable. Dialogue as a sign of weakness. It would be easy to let the world, as we see it now, define the limits of the world we believe is possible.
Yes, realism is needed. Yes, we need to be clear-eyed. Yes, we must recognise aggression, defend international law and protect human rights at all costs. But we may not let realism become fatalism. We also need to maintain the capacity to imagine a way out of confrontation, and the courage and patience to search for it.
Dear friends,
Just days ago, I met United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Höfði house. The circumstances were of course entirely different from those of October 1986. But returning to that house in such distinct company was a reminder of the lessons of history, of the power of diplomacy and how each generation must learn to practice it for itself – to write its own story.
And that is why gatherings such as this one matter. I want to thank the Univerisity of Iceland, the Höfði Reykjavík Peace Center, the organizers of the Imagine Forum and all the speakers and participants who have joined us here today.
Over the course of the day we will discuss disarmament, human rights, great-power rivalry, climate, democracy and the meaning of peace in a changing world.
These are complex and diverse challenges, but the same premise is underlying all of them: The present is not destiny. The future had not been written in Reykjavík 40 years ago and our future has not been written either. We can still refuse to accept that today’s world of rising conflict is the only world possible.
The work of peace begins right there: with the courage to imagine a different future, and then the determination to build it.
May today’s discussions challenge our assumptions, deepen our understanding and inspire us to see the world in new ways.
Ávarp Þorgerðar Katrínar Gunnarsdóttur, utanríkisráðherra, á friðarráðstefnunni Imagine Forum: From Cold War Lessons to Modern Challenges í Silfurbergi, Hörpu, 12. október 2026.