Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre

Mediator’s Retreat (Fredsmeglersamling) - Oslo Forum - 2006

Losby Gods 26 June 2006

The Foreign Minister’s talking points

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Dear friends,

This is the fourth time Norway is gathering together mediators on Norwegian soil to share their experience.

Summing up the period since the last retreat, we see that we have made advances, but still have challenges to meet. The world is not black or white; it is black and white.

In the Middle East, two political earthquakes have changed the field completely. Many of you here, like Alvaro De Soto and Ambassador Yakovlev, know from personal experience how the Israeli and Palestinian elections have affected the state of play in the Middle East.

Is it possible to achieve peace with an Israeli government intent on reaching a unilateral solution to the conflict? And will Hamas move forward to fulfil the demands set by the international community?

Right now the parties are unable to negotiate, and we are having difficulty addressing the serious humanitarian situation. Action is urgently needed.

Similarly in Sri Lanka, elections have affected the peace process. The current developments are very disturbing. As Minister Solheim and Mr Akashi can testify, we are now facing a situation of more fighting and less talking. We are appealing to the parties to stop the violence, and we hope that they are listening.

East Timor is a young country ravaged by internal strife. Important measures have been taken to end the violence. Now a process of reconciliation must begin.

And Iraq continues to cause concern, both within its borders and outside them. We are learning lessons about international intervention, and there is no real answer in sight.

But there are positive developments as well.

In Iran, although the road ahead may still be difficult, the latest developments point towards a moderation of rhetoric and a move towards compromise on all aspects of the nuclear issue.

In Sudan, a peace agreement was reached for Darfur, although it has not yet been signed by all factions.

In Aceh, GAM and the Indonesian Government have signed a peace agreement. One of our fellow mediators, President Ahtisaari, played an important part in making the dream of a peaceful settlement of the conflict a reality.

The Colombian Government and the ELN have decided to sit down at the same table, and there is hope that real negotiations will start in the near future.

In the Philippines, the Government is making headway in its Malaysian-brokered negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. I hope Secretary Dureza and Mr Razak will tell us more about this in the days to come.

In Somalia, the international community has come together to form the International Somalia Contact Group. The developments on the ground are unpredictable. The international community’s response should not be.

In Haiti, there is new hope for a more stable future after the presidential and parliamentary elections. Through the work of Juan Valdez, the Brazilian-led UN mission, Canada and Norway, to name a few, the political parties achieved an election process that was relatively fair and results that will hopefully provide more stability than the country has been used to.

And in Nepal, there is an historic chance to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict between the Maoists and the Government.

Dear friends,

For Norway, the year we have behind us was “caricatured”, if you will, by facsimile newspaper drawings in a minor Norwegian magazine. The protests that followed demonstrated that the world is more closely interconnected than ever before.

Normally we would be happy to see the Norwegian flag on the cover of Newsweek. The only problem was that this one was burning.

But the cartoon issue also showed us something else. Preventive dialogue works. One of the reasons we managed to ride out the storm was the relationships we had built through long-term dialogue with the religious communities in Norway.

At a more general level, one of the challenges facing the mediator community is to allocate resources to preventative measures. There is some truth to the saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. If we could use our experience, our knowledge and our creativity to prevent conflicts from emerging or re-emerging, we could save people from death and suffering at a fraction of the cost of war.

In moving forward towards a regime of prevention, we need to develop early warning systems and mechanisms for intervention that will prevent crises emerging.

But we need to recognise the limitations of prevention as well.

How do you know whether a conflict would have surfaced if you hadn’t implemented measures to prevent it?

How do you justify spending money on preventing a war that never was? These are some of the questions you will be grappling with this week.

Dear friends,

Norway’s peace and reconciliation policy involves more than a series of engagements in peace processes. The sum total of these processes, our engagement in the UN and our development policy are also emerging as an important part of our security policy. Security policy for the 21 ^st >century. Security policy for the age of globalisation.

Globalisation is making the world a better place. Many people are being lifted out of poverty, but far too many are being left behind.

In the last 15 years, the world has seen 100 conflicts, of which about 30 are still “active” today. Nearly all of them are internal. Nevertheless, due to globalisation, we are all affected by them. Many of today’s greatest challenges – terrorism, international crime, environmental degradation, the spread of infectious diseases and fear – originate in conflict areas far away. However, nowhere is really “far away” anymore; local conflicts are a global problem, a global challenge.

Our efforts to achieve peace, reconciliation and development are therefore not only inspired by solidarity and respect for human dignity. By helping others, we are also helping ourselves.

At the same time, much of what Norway achieves on its own is only possible because of our involvement in international cooperation, our partnerships and our alliances. In several conflict areas Norway’s role has been to prepare for, complement or support the efforts of the UN. Our efforts under the auspices of the UN have given us credibility. Our peace and reconciliation efforts are rooted in our commitment to the UN, NATO and European cooperation. Although we have had high-profile roles in some conflicts, we generally cooperate with others. Norwegian peacebuilding is based on teamwork.

But in some instances, we play the role of lead facilitator or mediator. Our involvement in Sri Lanka, Sudan and the Middle East is well known. Many are also aware of the role we are playing in the Philippines and Haiti, and, after a hiatus of several years, we are involved as accompanying country – together with Switzerland and Spain – in the dialogue between the ELN and the Government of Colombia.

I will not go into the status of these processes, as many of you are familiar with them or even actively involved in resolving some of them. In mentioning them, I want to make a different point.

The range of Norway’s engagement in peace and reconciliation processes has made it both possible and important to systematise and professionalise our efforts.

We are investing in research, and we are refining the way we organise our work on peace processes. Furthermore, we are continuously striving to utilise the experience we have gained along the way. We should try to avoid making mistakes, but if we do, we can at least try to make them only once.

The Mediator’s Retreat symbolises many of the things we want to promote in our contribution to peace and reconciliation. We hope that this opportunity to share experience will enable us to perform better when we are entrusted with the role of acting as mediator to conflicting parties.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and Martin in particular, for their efforts in organising this retreat and for preparing the background documents. We have enjoyed cooperating with you and your team, Martin

It was a great pleasure to welcome you all earlier today, and I sincerely hope that you will enjoy your days here in Norway.