Schwab used shuttle diplomacy to bring the two leaders who were on the brink of war over Cyprus back to Switzerland, where they negotiated and signed the Davos Declaration aimed at normalizing relations.

At the 1987 World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher appealed to the West to reach out to the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. "Let's take Gorbachev seriously. Let's take him at his word!"