Åge Bernhard Grutle (born 19 June 1952) is a Norwegian diplomat and royal servant. He was born in

Haugesund Haugesund () is a municipalities of Norway, municipality and List of towns and cities in Norway, town on the North Sea in Rogaland county, Norway. As of December 2023, the municipality of Haugesund has a population of 37,855. The vast majority of ...

, has a master's degree in international affairs, and started his career in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

in 1978. In his early diplomatic career he was stationed at the embassies in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In 1987 he was declared as expelled from the latter country, during a minor diplomatic crisis. He was a sub-director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1994, secretary for the

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs () is a defunct committee of the Norwegian Parliament responsible for matters related to foreign policy, development assistance, international agreements, Svalbard and the Norwegian polar regions The pola ...

from 1994 to 1999 as well as leader of the international secretariat, and deputy under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1999 to 2004. He then became a Norwegian ambassador, first to

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

from 2004 to 2009. In 2005 he led the insight committee on how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

. In 2009 Grutle was appointed as the

Lord Chamberlain The Lord Chamberlain of the Household is the most senior officer of the Royal Households of the United Kingdom, Royal Household of the United Kingdom, supervising the departments which support and provide advice to the Monarchy of the United Ki ...

at the Norwegian Royal Court, but in 2015 he returned to the foreign service as ambassador to

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. The Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav was bestowed upon Grutle on 26 August 2015.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grutle, Aage 1952 births Living people People from Haugesund Norwegian expatriates in the Soviet Union Ambassadors of Norway to Japan Ambassadors of Norway to Finland 20th-century Norwegian civil servants 21st-century Norwegian civil servants