Nazih Elnaggary on when to step in and when to hold back

Automatically transcribed There was such a moment when we started hearing from outside the certain noise and people quarrelling. Then they sent someone to me and said "We want you in the room, please come because it's not working well". I went in there and repeated that we do not want to interfere with their work. There was a man who was a famous writer in Syria who got a little unnerved and told me, "What is it with you? You're repeating, I don't want to interfere. We want you to interfere". Then I started staying in the room and discussing and I started helping. At the end, I said, "Guys, if you don't agree, there will be no way for us to host you again.” [00:00:00.000] - Adam Cooper Welcome to the Mediator's Studio, a podcast about peacemakers, bringing you stories from behind the scenes. I'm your host, Adam Cooper. I'm at the Oslo Forum, where some of the world's leading figures in peacemaking have come to discuss resolving conflicts from Gaza to Ukraine, Myanmar, Syria, Sudan, and beyond. My guest today is a long-time seasoned Egyptian diplomat who has held several key positions over the course of his career. He played a central role in facilitating dialogue between Lebanese factions and among Syrian opposition groups during talks in Cairo. In his current role as Egypt's ambassador to Moscow, he has been engaged in quiet diplomacy related to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Nazih Elnaggary, welcome to the Mediator's Studio. [00:00:45.720] - Nazih El Naggary Thank you for having me. [00:00:47.440] - Adam Cooper Let's start with your early years and the motivations and experiences that led you into your career. You're from a diplomatic family. Your father was also a career diplomat. As a child, you travelled around the world, including a posting in the Soviet Union during the depths of the Cold War from 1979 to 1983. You must have a lot of memories of life under Soviet communism. What stands out from those years? [00:01:15.720] - Nazih El Naggary It's a childhood that is quite diverse. I have to be thankful to my parents because we lived in various places. I started off in Mauritania. We went off to Switzerland, where I was at the French school in Bern, and to Moscow. Moscow was quite a marking experience because at first when we arrived, I was not yet 10 years old. It seems like everything was different as compared to Switzerland. The goods were not available on the market. As a 9 or 10-year-old kid, you don't understand why it is so different here. [00:02:04.940] - Adam Cooper What the communist system was. [00:02:06.560] - Nazih El Naggary Yeah, what it was. That's why I started asking questions, why are the toys, for example, that I used to have, are not available on the market? That's when my father started explaining to me about communism, about the different system in Russia, in the Soviet Union at the time. [00:02:23.900] - Adam Cooper It's beginning of your political education. [00:02:25.560] - Nazih El Naggary That's when I started getting interested in politics because somehow my life was being affected by what I was hearing from my father. It was an important thing also to have lived the experience of being in a Communist country and the values also because it's also there are some very positive things that you can learn from such a life. [00:02:52.440] - Adam Cooper What did you learn? [00:02:55.960] - Nazih El Naggary One of the very important things I learned was patience, because you could not obtain things that you needed quickly there. You had to order from outside or someone coming from your country had to bring something to you or you waited till you are on holiday to get something. And there was not that much to do. I learned to play chess, for example, which is a game where you have to be patient, where you have to think very carefully and plan. Out of this what seemed to be a hardship at the time, I learned a lot. Whenever I'm in Moscow now as the ambassador of Egypt, I keep remembering walking on the same streets 40 years earlier. These are extremely important memories to me. [00:04:38.300] - Adam Cooper I'd like to move on to your work on Syria, where I'm sure patience was an extremely useful quality. At the start of 2011, demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring break out in Syria and soon develop into a fully fledged arm revolution against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Then, starting in 2014, Egypt hosts a series of meetings with the Syrian opposition in Cairo, when you are Deputy Chief of the cabinet of the Foreign Minister. At that time, there were various opposition groupings, including one in Cairo, others in Istanbul and Moscow. Tell me about those different groups and your thinking as one of the movers behind the Cairo meetings. [00:05:19.700] - Nazih El Naggary In 2011, on the 15th of March, when the uprising started in Syria, starting from the south, it looked to some as a Sunni uprising, given it started. We viewed it as a coincidence it started in a Sunni area but the all of the Syrian people had a feeling of living in a hardship of dissatisfaction with the current situation. The idea of Making that uprising a Sunni revolution was not a good idea to us in Egypt and to many people, but that was the trend at the time. Some of the opposition figures we knew were telling us that this uprising is going to be shared soon. Others will participate in Christians, Druzes and others, but that it needs some time, and it needs to remain pacific. It needs to be a civilian, an unarmed revolution or unarmed pricing for it to succeed. But there were forces that were pushing that towards a sectarian logic. There was some financing coming from some countries. The effort in Istanbul was to bring along a number of opposition figures and to organise the opposition into something that would challenge the regime. We thought that, or at least some of the Syrians we knew and we trusted, were telling us that this is not going to work because if you make it into a Sunni uprising, it will then become a bit of a perceived threat to the other minorities, to the Christians, to the Jews, to the Alawites, who will somehow take sides with the regime and create a certain balance that would foster a certain civil war instead of a weight of all weighing with all the component of the Syrian society to effect a regime transition, if you will, not the regime change, but the transition that would be well-controlled as to avoid spiralling into a civil war. [00:08:22.970] - Adam Cooper Would it be fair to say you were trying to create a more cohesive and less sectarian Syrian opposition through these meetings that started in 2014 and followed up later in 2015? [00:08:35.680] - Nazih El Naggary I wouldn't say we were trying as much as we have a certain reputation, the Egyptian revolution in Egypt had preceded that, or two revolutions, actually, for that matter. But we had a reputation of being quite balanced in our foreign policy. Therefore, the voices of the Syrian society that deemed themselves to be marginalised by the Muslim Brotherhood or the sectarian movement came to us and sought our help in giving them a platform to express themselves because the trend was that these people, the Syrian National Council, that was the first body representing the opposition was somehow the exclusive representative of the Syrian population. Some others said, It's not true. These people are under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and we are the other forces in society that are not given a voice. So please open up to us, give us a platform, and we are coming to Egypt specifically because Egypt will not interfere, will not intervene in our work and will let us do the work. Just give us a place and we will just do the work by ourselves. [00:10:06.060] - Adam Cooper Give me a sense of what that actually looks like in practise. You have these groups coming to you. They're saying we need a place for us to discuss. They're hoping that you won't interfere, as you put it. What does the first meeting look like? How many people are in the room? Where are they sitting? And what are you doing? [00:10:22.720] - Nazih El Naggary The first meeting was between 45 and 50 representatives of various small groups. Let's say that each five people would represent one group of opposition. They adopted a statement, a press statement that elaborated on their objectives as an opposition, and that reflected that there was a group being formed out of those different smaller factions that had common objectives. It announced that another larger conference would be held the same year. [00:11:44.330] - Adam Cooper That first meeting, you're sitting inside the room, you're waiting outside? What's your mood? Are you nervous? Are you hopeful? [00:11:53.560] - Nazih El Naggary I was very hopeful because as we were in the process of preparing this, Minister of Foreign Affairs changed. Then came Minister Nabil Fahmi, and then came Sameh Shoukry, and I had to explain to the new minister what this was all about because I needed him to support me and own the project. [00:12:22.580] - Adam Cooper I guess, protect you in case anything went wrong. [00:12:24.770] - Nazih El Naggary On the day, I announced. I told him we need to issue a statement from the Ministry announcing that we are hosting an event for the Syrian opposition, he looked at me and said, Are you confident this is going to work? I said, I'm hopeful. I cannot be 100% confident, but If we need to be 100% sure, we would never do anything. We are just going to venture into it. Thankfully, it worked, at least at the time. I was a little bit anxious. We were outside the room, of course, because they specifically asked us to let them work, and we did not really want to impose anything on them. We wanted them to be credible before their own constituents, and so we wanted them to work on their own. [00:13:31.180] - Adam Cooper This is a really important point, ambassador, because you're there to provide a space and allow them to discuss. But you have 45, 50 people in a room, diverse groups. I'm sure finding consensus isn't easy. Was there a moment where you felt that your role had to evolve, given the diversity of opinions that were in that room? [00:13:55.220] - Nazih El Naggary There was such a moment when we started hearing from outside the certain noise and people quarrelling. We got a little concerned. But then they sent someone to me and said "We want you in the room, please come because it's not working well". I went in there and repeated what I had said that we do not want to interfere with their work, but please, you have to work because if you don't reach an agreement within a day or two days we have, that would be embarrassing. I bet on you. Please don't put me in that situation. I was also trying to put some pressure on them. But for the time being, I was still a facilitator, not a mediator. I said, I will go and you try to reach a compromise and issue a statement. I went out, and then 30 minutes later, the voice was escalating in a way. It called me again. I again said, I don't want to interfere. [00:15:14.560] - Nazih El Naggary There was a man who was a famous writer in Syria who's dead now, he was 85 at the time, who got a little unnerved and told me, "What is it with you? You're repeating, I don't want to interfere. We want you to interfere. We are not going to reach any compromise unless you interfere". Then I started staying in the room and discussing and I started helping with amending some phrases, some expressions. At the end, I said, "If you don't agree, there will be no way for us to host you again. This will be over first and last time. So you have to do something because you have a common objective, which is to break the monopoly of a certain faction, Islamist or other, of the representation of the Syrian society. So if you have this objective in common, you have to be able to sacrifice some of the details for you to weigh in as a credible force representing the Syrian society". So, at the end, there was one leader, Haytham Manna, he was the one who had initiated this whole thing. We knew each other from a long time before, and he said, I want a separate room with a computer. He went there, sat on his own. He wrote two pages. When he came back, that was quite consensual. We distributed the two pages. He read them, and everybody was more or less in agreement with some amendments. It was quite a success that they all were capable to issue one statement that expressed their political project and their view, their vision of the future in Syria. [00:17:30.130] - Adam Cooper Just briefly, for a listener who might not know Syria well, what did that success look like? You referenced that this first statement, but beyond that, their roadmaps and frameworks and vision, what did it actually look like in practise? [00:17:44.380] - Nazih El Naggary This was in January 2015, what they issued was a press statement that had the guidelines of their vision. Afterwards, in June in 2015. They issued two documents. One of them was the roadmap to a politically negotiated settlement or a politically negotiated solution. Something else that was the base of a constitution that talked about basic rights for different components of the Syrian society, for women, something the beginning of a constitution or constitutional principles. That was work they did over three, four months of negotiation because in the first meeting, they nominated 11 people to be the follow-up committee. That follow-up committee prepared the documents and prepared everything in coordination with us for the second meeting that adopted. The 11 people negotiated those two important documents that were adopted in June 2015. [00:19:08.520] - Adam Cooper I'm curious, your assessment for the relevance of all of that work, given where Syria is today. Because in December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a major offensive by opposition forces, spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, HTS. Given that reality today, how do you look back on the work that you did? Do you think it had any lasting impact? [00:19:37.100] - Nazih El Naggary The way things unfolded did not really, up till now, allow for the various opposition groups to play a role in the transition. These groups, the various opposition groups, were somehow competing with each other and competing within each of those groups. I have to also be transparent. Some stakeholders, including countries, be them regional or other, were also pushing in various directions those groups and the components of each group in a way that frequently did not help preserve their unity and their relevance. So, HTS, which was not part of any political opposition group, but basically people on the ground carrying arms and forming various groups of fighters were in Idlib, grouped in Idlib, and they were the force on the ground at the moment of the regime collapse. So, they took over. But by then, the various opposition groups had really lost momentum, almost completely, and lost credibility and relevance. They did not, unfortunately, play almost any role in the transition. [00:21:42.700] - Adam Cooper Do you feel a sense of personal disappointment or frustration? [00:21:46.220] - Nazih El Naggary Of course, I would have liked to see those people working better together. At a certain point, I told them, There's no way you guys can keep working with us. It was a distance created between us and them because we had put so much effort into helping them. But then the ego issues between them or the political differences, the small quarrels between them, put them completely out of the picture. That was quite a pity. I mean, of course, it is a disappointment because we had a dream together that we believed in the same values and same principles. In that context, we provided a lot of sincere and genuine help. It's unfortunate they were not able to be part of their country's transition when the time came. [00:22:50.660] - Adam Cooper I'd like to move from Syria to Lebanon. During the Lebanese Civil War from 1975 to 1990, there have been various attempts to unite the country as a multifaceted conflict raged. This was complicated by the Israeli invasion of the south in 1982 and Israel's eventual withdrawal in 1990. The Taif Agreement of Power Sharing, which seemed to provide a basis for moving out of the war, was signed in 1989, but never completely implemented. And then in 2005, the former Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri, was assassinated, and leaders of his March 14th Alliance accused Syria of being behind the attack, while others, like Syria, accused Israel. And then the Civil War threatened to spill over into Lebanon, driving millions of refugees across the border. And into this complex mix, you arrive as the Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon in 2016. And you see an opportunity or a need for facilitation, rather as you did in relation to Syria as we've been discussing, but in in a different context. Tell me about what you did in Beirut. [00:24:04.380] - Nazih El Naggary I started off in Beirut in 2002 at the embassy, stayed four years, witnessed the assassination of Rafic Hariri and some other assassinations. Some of the people I knew personally were assassinated. [00:24:19.540] - Adam Cooper It must have been very shocking for you that day when he was assassinated. [00:24:23.760] - Nazih El Naggary Yeah, I had a friend whom I wanted to actually take out to lunch one, and I was trying to call him. Then my secretary comes in and says, The man has been assassinated. I switch on my TV and see him in his car, dead, killed in his car. Yes, it was a bit of a difficult environment, I have to say, on the security level, but also on the political level. When I returned back to Lebanon as the ambassador I had already known, and not only until 2006, when I left Lebanon the first time, but I had been working in the ministers' cabinet on the Arab issues and in Paris on the Arab issues. I never left the field, if you will. I arrived in 2016 at the time when there had been a vacancy in the presidency for quite a long time. Then two months later, where President Michel Aoun took office. These were also very challenging times because the deal that had led to Michel Aoun becoming the Lebanese President was a deal that was quite controversial. Some Arab countries were extremely unhappy with it, and it did not really help Lebanon with its economic and financial problems. Unfortunately, Lebanon fell into a more complicated phase that it is now trying to get out of. [00:26:10.610] - Adam Cooper For a listener who might not know Lebanon well, what was the fault line, essentially, politically, that you were trying to bridge in the country? [00:26:22.980] - Nazih El Naggary Basically, I will not claim too much credit. One has to be realistic and stay humble. But the problem with Lebanon after the assassination of Rafic Hariri was there were two major tendencies in the society and in the political elite, which was those who want Lebanon to really become independent of all the regional complications. In 2005, when Rafic Hariri was assassinated and there was a popular sentiment, that this was the work of the Syrian intelligence, that now they really need to go out. People demonstrated in a huge revolution on the main places of Beirut, calling for the Syrians to go out and all the people who used to work in coordination with them among the Lebanese officials to just leave office. There was another faction that was led by another group of political parties led by Hezbollah that would tend to say, "No, we need to thank the Syrians for keeping Lebanon stable over the years". And that division was extremely difficult to bridge. That gap was extremely difficult to bridge. [00:29:57.200] - Nazih El Naggary So this is where all the embassies, not only the Egyptian embassy, were trying to sort of address those very serious contentious issues. And the fault line, as you said, that was difficult to bridge. [00:30:17.260] - Adam Cooper I know you weren't the only one who were working on bridging that divide, but talk to me about what you did personally to try to do that, given that very complex history of different degrees of alignment with Syria. How did you think about trying to forge some compromise? What was the end output, actually? [00:30:40.220] - Nazih El Naggary The election of Michel Aoun was somehow the announcement of an understanding between those two factions because the main players were Saad Al-Hariri, the leader who inherited the legitimacy of his assassinated father, if you will, in the Sunni Street, and in Lebanon in general. The other side was a Christian leader that was one day an opposition figure, a harsh opposition figure to hardliners when it comes to the Syrians, but who had come back to Lebanon, having made a deal with the Syrians and having moved from one side to the other, becoming the ally of Hezbollah, through an understanding they signed in 2006, and had become the Christian component of what is called the eighth of March movement, which is rather aligned with the Syrians, and this resistance axis in the region. These were the two competing fighting tendencies. When Saad Al Hariri decided that it is becoming more and more difficult to prevail without the participation of the eighth of March, he decided to conclude a deal with Michel Aoun, by which he would encourage his constituents to support Michel Aoun reaching office, and Michel Aoun, as the President, would support Saad Al-Hariri going back to office as a Prime Minister once more. [00:32:44.090] - Adam Cooper That was the political compromise in the end. [00:32:49.170] - Nazih El Naggary But I have to say that political compromise was not to the liking of so many regional forces, Arab countries and internal forces, and therefore it was not really working ideally all the time. Forming a government, for example, became very problematic. Sometimes we had to mediate between, let's say, Walid Joumblatt and Saad Al-Hariri because they would not agree on the shares each one would have, which ministries, et cetera. Then we had to play a mediating role between them to help them to get to some understanding and just keep the country going on. [00:33:35.360] - Adam Cooper Do you remember any particularly difficult moments in that dynamic between Joumblatt and Hariri? [00:33:41.080] - Nazih El Naggary Yeah, I remember that, and I actually have a nice picture to show you about that. [00:33:47.820] - Adam Cooper What's in the picture? [00:33:50.200] - Nazih El Naggary It was Walid Joumblatt inviting me and Saad to a small restaurant with a couple of assistants to each, and the wife of Walid Joumblatt in a small popular restaurant. So that was one of the days we were trying to get them to get along with each other. They were trying to form a government in early 2019. Saad Hariri giving a certain priority to his alliance with Michel Aoun wanted to give the President and the Gebran Bassil a number of portfolios at the expense of Walid Joumblatt and others. The mediation was basically to try and encourage Hariri to keep a fair share to the Druzes and to Walid Joumblatt. It was quite successful at the end. They managed to form a government. But these are all tactical moves because the underlying fault lines remain the same in Lebanon. [00:35:06.980] - Adam Cooper Let's talk about the job you now do, Egyptian ambassador to Moscow, where you're also busy sending messages in a different way. If I may, I'd like to read you a quote from President Putin who said in January 2021, "We regard Egypt as one of Russia's major partners in the Middle East and Africa. Our relations are progressively developing under the agreement on comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation". If we wind forward to 24th of February 2022, when Russia's full scale of invasion of Ukraine begins, it's fair to say that there are very different narratives regarding the war involving Russia and Ukraine, depending on where you sit on the geopolitical spectrum, do you see it as part of your role to help bridge the very different perceptions that are held in Russia and the West? [00:35:56.260] - Nazih El Naggary Of course it is. This is the work of diplomacy. I think we do this in our daily life. We mediate between people. We also mediate for peaceful solutions between countries. Egypt has participated in two initiatives, one Arab and one African, at the beginning of the conflict to try and get the various parties to the conflict closer together. That has not necessarily given any immediate results. But lately also, Egypt has participated in a Brazilian-Chinese initiative called the Friends of Peace with around 12 or 13 other countries. As the ambassador there, Of Egypt, yes, you are a friendly country. We have quite special and developed relations with Russia. We also have very important and strategic relations with Europe and the Western countries and the USA. So, it is in our interest also, realistically speaking, not to fall into a situation where you would have to choose your camp. Naturally speaking, when you talk to the Russians and you talk to the ambassadors of the Western or European countries, you hear different arguments and you can sense how sincere each discourse is. But then the two parties do not believe each other. [00:37:38.520] - Nazih El Naggary There is very little trust. You find yourself naturally inclined to just convey some messages and try to at least understand for yourself and maybe help the other parties understand that the intention is not necessarily to defeat or destroy the other [00:38:00.400] - Adam Cooper For a listener who might not know what that diplomatic work looks like in practise, just bring us into a moment where if you talk about passing a message or helping a Western interlocutor understand what you understand the Russian position today. What does it actually look like in reality to do that? [00:38:20.560] - Nazih El Naggary The Ukrainian narrative is one that, or many of the European countries' narratives would be that Russia is actually seeking to re-create the greatness of the Russian Empire, and that therefore, all of what the Russians say about that they're feeling threatened by some of the policies of the West and NATO in the East is just a cover for an ambition to reconquer the Eastern parts of Europe, and that all the talk about Russia feeling encircled, and all this is pure Russian propaganda. While when you talk to the Russians, you can feel that they have sincere concerns. They're a big country, yes, but they also have concerns about the waves of expansion, about the fact that they were promised not to expand NATO towards the east when they facilitated the reunification of Germany, et cetera. But then there have been three waves, et cetera. You can sense they're talking to us. There are no other people in the room, so we're talking bilaterally. You can sense from their tone, from the way they explain things, that they have some genuine concerns. It's the same thing. [00:40:14.740] - Nazih El Naggary They also think that the West is after them, is trying to destroy Russia. When you talk to Western diplomats, you don't necessarily feel that objective. You try to tell each party that the other side's intentions are not necessarily the best, but they're not as bad as they think they are. [00:40:38.880] - Adam Cooper I can hear the frustration in your voice in a sense, ambassador. When you look back on the past three years, can you recall a moment where you think the West and Russia severely misunderstood each other and that there was a missed diplomatic opportunity that could have led to some de-escalation? [00:41:00.000] - Nazih El Naggary The Istanbul talks in the spring of 2022, where the Ukrainians and the Russians were reportedly about to sign or maybe almost had a preliminary signature of a document that would have led to a ceasefire. That, I think, was quite a moment that was a missed opportunity because maybe some parties were thinking that there was still things to achieve militarily. But then I think that was not the case because what happened later on was not to the advantage of a settlement. Now, the deal that the Ukrainians can get today out of the negotiations that are ongoing will probably be much less than what they could have obtained in early 2022. I think that was a missed opportunity. [00:42:18.620] - Adam Cooper I'd like to step back from the individual context in Russia, Syria, and Lebanon, and just end this interview with a few of your broader conclusions on this mediation work. Because of its geography and history, Egypt is a unique place in regional diplomacy. Many diplomats from other Arab countries go there for their diplomatic training. What are your thoughts on Egypt's evolving role in diplomacy and mediation? [00:42:45.080] - Nazih El Naggary I think one of the assets of Egypt is credibility. We are not known for having agendas in our neighbourhood. This is not only me speaking, but I think this is the picture or the perception that our neighbours have of us. That's why when they come tell us mediate between us or mediate between us and our neighbours, it is because of this credibility that we have as a country with this, the wise foreign policy that seeks stability, that seeks development. We are trying in the context of our capabilities, to help the Palestinians, for example, in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, through our contacts with the Israelis or with the Americans or with Qatar to stabilise the situation and go ahead with a political settlement, not only to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza, but to really solve the issue. We're putting a lot of capital into that. As ambassador in Moscow, there were also contacts with the Russians who have a certain influence in the region to try and help the stabilisation of the region. [00:44:20.700] - Adam Cooper In a number of your diplomatic postings, you've been entrusted to do work that's quite politically delicate, whether it be helping a group forge a common position as in Syria or pass messages as in Lebanon or in Russia. I want to ask a personal question, if I may, about what you think it is about your character that has allowed you to do that work. [00:44:42.720] - Nazih El Naggary It's difficult to talk about one's self. [00:44:54.230] - Nazih El Naggary People think that diplomacy is in a way the art of telling people how to go to hell in a way that they would look forward to going there. I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. I think when you are a diplomat, sincerity and a genuine feeling that you have principled objectives is very important in creating and building a certain credibility towards your interlocutors. I hope I have been able to not only give the image of someone who's credible, but I hope I have been able to be credible as much as I can and sincere. That's a very important trait, I think, in a diplomat. [00:45:45.080] - Adam Cooper Well, on that humble note, there we must end. Nazih Elnaggary, thank you so much for being my guest in the Mediator's Studio. [00:45:51.520] - Nazih El Naggary Thank you very much. [00:45:52.780] - Adam Cooper That's it for this edition of the Mediator's Studio. To get more episodes as they come out, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We always love to hear from you. So if Nazih Elnaggary's work in Moscow, in relation to Syria or in Lebanon have resonated with you, please get in touch via the Listener survey and the show notes on our website. Or do drop me a message on Twitter @AdamTalksPeace. The Mediator’s Studio is an Oslo Forum podcast brought to you by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our managing editor is Christina Buchhold and the producer is Chris Gunness. Research for this episode was by Oscar Eschenbrenner. Big thanks also to Ly Buiduong for her support. Hope you'll join me for the next edition. Until then, from Losby Gods in Norway, this is Adam Cooper saying goodbye, and thank you for listening.