Terje Rød-Larsen (born 22 November 1947) is a Norwegian

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

, and sociologist. Rød-Larsen came to wide international prominence as a key figure in the 1990s negotiations that led to the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the st ...

—the first-ever agreements between

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...

(PLO)—when he served as the director of the Fafo institute. Rose, Charlie (interviewer), with interviewees diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen, playwright J. T. Rogers, and director Bartlett Sher, with other segments, in
Charlie Rose: The Week, May 5, 2017
'' (Video) as aired May 6, 2017,

Public Broadcasting System The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prom ...

(PBS), retrieved May 6, 2017Rogers, J.T. (playwright)
Theater: "'Oslo' and the Drama in Diplomacy"
June 17, 2016, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' retrieved May 6, 2017 He is played by the actor Andrew Scott in the film

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

, based on the play of the same name. In 1993, Rød-Larsen was appointed Ambassador and Special Adviser for the Middle East Peace process to the Norwegian Foreign Minister, and the following year, he became the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories at the rank of Under-Secretary-General. Rød-Larsen briefly served as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Planning and Cooperation of Norway in the Jagland cabinet in 1996. He had to resign after a tax affair regarding him came to public attention. Rød-Larsen then returned to the United Nations, where he again became an Under-Secretary-General, serving as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority from 1999 to 2004. From 2004 to 2020, Rød-Larsen has been the president of the International Peace Institute (IPI), based in

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, adjacent to the

, which the IPI works with extensively. He resigned in 2020 over previously undisclosed links to

Jeffrey Epstein Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( , ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American financier and child sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional career as a teacher at the Dalton School, despite lacking a col ...

Biography

Rød-Larsen grew up in

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

and studied social sciences, culminating in a Ph.D. in

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

. He taught at Norwegian universities until 1981, when he helped found FAFO, a research organization funded by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions.

Early Middle East work

In 1989 Rød-Larsen moved to

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, when his wife Mona Juul, who worked for the

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Norwegian or ''Utenriksdepartementet''; or ''Utanriksdepartementet''; UD) is the foreign ministry of the Kingdom of Norway. It was established on June 7, 1905, the same day the Parliament of ...

, was stationed there. He continued to work for FAFO, as the organization had become more internationally oriented during the 1980s. Rød-Larsen performed a detailed sociological study of living conditions in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, Gaza and Eastern Jerusalem. In the course of this work, Rød-Larsen made contacts that proved to be useful in secret negotiations between

and the

PLO The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in both the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora. ...

Oslo Accords

When serving as the director of the Fafo institute in the early 1990s, Rød-Larsen became a key figure in the 1990s negotiations that led to the

—the first-ever agreements between

and the

(PLO). He served a pivotal role in the negotiations not only overtly, but in secret back-channel maneuvers and communications—largely arranged and facilitated by him and his wife, Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul. She was able to facilitate high-level contacts with the Norwegian foreign minister, Johan Jørgen Holst, who was instrumental in reaching the Oslo Accords—leading to the peace agreement signing on September 13, 1993 in Washington D.C.'' The 2016-2017 Broadway play, ''

,'' by noted playwright J. T. Rogers, is a widely-praised dramatization of the previously unheralded secret work of Rød-Larsen and his wife, and others, in developing the back-channel communications that (reportedly) saved the Oslo negotiations from collapsing. The same year Rød-Larsen became formally employed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a special advisor on Middle Eastern affairs.

Mid-1990s to Mid-2000s

From 1994 to 1996, Rød-Larsen served as former

Secretary-General Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

Boutros Boutros-Ghali's first "Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories." In 1996, Rød-Larsen served briefly as minister of administration in the government of Thorbjørn Jagland, before being forced to resign as the result of a tax scandal. In 9/9/1999, Rød-Larsen was appointed as UN Secretary-General

Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder a ...

's personal representative to the

and

Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...

on the

and the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

. He was also the UN Special Coordinator for peace negotiations in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

. He subsequently left the post in 2004 to become President of the International Peace Academy, a NYC-based think tank, and was also designated as UN Special Representative (Date of Appointment : 3/1/2005) for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

n withdrawal of

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

and the disarmament of

Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

16 August

Rød-Larsen was sent by U.N. Secretary-General

to Lebanon and Israel to follow up on the implementation of the cease-fire resolution, the United Nations announced on 16 August 2006.

20 August

On this date Rød-Larsen told reporters. "There is a golden opportunity for Lebanon to solidify its democracy, to assert it authority, to produce a situation where Lebanon can be reconstructed and where Lebanese can live peacefully with its neighbors in prosperity. All this is at hand."

22 August

The United Nations special envoy to Syria and Lebanon said on 22 August 2006 it could take the Lebanese army and international troops two to three months to fill a "security vacuum" in southern Lebanon and warned that "unintended" acts could spark renewed fighting. "There is now a security vacuum which the Lebanese government is trying to fill" with the help of international forces, said Terje Rød-Larsen. "But I think realistically, up to a point, you will have such a vacuum in Lebanon for the next two, three months," he added. "The situation is still extremely fragile... Unintended incidents can kick off renewed violence, which might escalate and spin out of control."

Controversy

In 2020 media revealed that he Rød-Larsen had borrowed 130,000 USD from

. During the week that preceded 18 October 2020, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry requested that Rød-Larsen clarify the ties between Epstein and himself. On 21 October, Norwegian newspaper '' Dagens Næringsliv'' said that sometime after the money was borrowed, Rød-Larsen "gave the green light for a payment of 100,000 dollars from International Peace Institute (IPI)">he International Peace Institute (IPI)to Epstein", although an audit by accounting firm

KPMG KPMG is a multinational professional services network, based in London, United Kingdom. As one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte, and PwC. KPMG is a network of firms in 145 countries with 275,288 emplo ...

found no payment was made. On 29 October 2020, Rød-Larsen resigned the presidency of the IPI.

References

External links

*
Innlegg: Fredsmeglingens fallgruver
eceived articles: The pitfalls of peace-brokering 7 May 2021. Dagens Næringsliv
Rød-Larsen's wife, Mona Juul's house bugged
''Nettavisen'', 20 January 2004.
Rød-Larsen at the UN
13 July 2004.

17 March 2005.
Foreign ministry to investigate money to Rød-Larsen
24 April 2002
Rød-Larsen wanted to become United Nations-chief (''Rød-Larsen ville bli FN-sjef'')
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rod-Larsen, Terje 1947 births Living people Israeli–Palestinian peace process Diplomats from Bergen Norwegian sociologists Norwegian officials of the United Nations Special Envoys of the Secretary-General of the United Nations