Thorvald Stoltenberg

Thorvald Stoltenberg was a prominent Norwegian politician and diplomat. He started his career in the Foreign Ministry in 1958 and served in various diplomatic posts, including San Francisco, Belgrade, and Lagos. He was also the international secretary of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions from 1970 to 1973 and from 1981 to 1983. He was a member of the Labour Party and held several ministerial positions in different governments. He was the Minister of Defence from 1979 to 1981 and the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1987 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1993. As a foreign minister, he initiated the Barents cooperation, a regional forum for dialogue and cooperation among the countries bordering the Barents Sea. He also played an active role in the Middle East peace process and the Nordic cooperation. In 1990, he was appointed as the Norwegian ambassador to the United Nations and later as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He resigned from this post after less than a year to rejoin the Norwegian government. From 1993 to 1996, he was the UN special representative and co-chairman of the steering committee of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. He was involved in several peace negotiations and agreements, such as the Erdut Agreement that ended the Croatian War of Independence. He was also the UN witness at the signing of the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War. After his political career, he continued to work for various humanitarian and peacebuilding causes. He was the president of the Norwegian Red Cross from 1999 to 2008, the chairman of the board of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance from 2003 to 2009, and the leader of a commission on Nordic cooperation on foreign and security policy in 2008-2009. He was also a member of the Trilateral Commission and the European Leadership Network. He was awarded several honors and prizes for his work, such as the Red Cross Prize, the Booth Prize, the Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo, and the 13 January Medal. He was married to Karin Stoltenberg, a geneticist and civil servant, and had three children, all of whom became prominent figures in Norwegian society. His daughter Camilla is a physician and director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, his son Jens is a former prime minister of Norway and the current secretary-general of NATO, and his daughter Nini was a social activist and journalist. Thorvald Stoltenberg died of natural causes in Oslo on 13 July 2018, at the age of 87.