Remarks by Espen Barth Eide after his meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry

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FOREIGN MINISTER EIDE: (Thank you very much, Secretary Kerry.) Let me first say that I am really pleased to be here so early in your tenure as Secretary of State. It’s also so good for us in Norway to have a Secretary of State who actually lived in Norway and who can even speak quite impressively some Norwegian phrases which he tried out on us, and we were quite impressed by his memory of that. And I think that also really suggests that we’re going to have a very, very close working relationship as we’ve had also in the past with your predecessors.

The United States of America is obviously Norway’s most important ally, and we have a very strong partnership in NATO and in security and military defense issues, but the United States is also such an important partner in so many global issues. That means the crosscutting issues, as was mentioned, the climate change and the whole issue of the Arctic, which requires close cooperation of all Arctic states and all the concerned states, the issue of global health.

And we work together in the Middle East peace process. We work together on Myanmar. We work together on Sudan and South Sudan. And we very much share the same analysis of the very sad and tragic story that is unfolding in Syria and the need to bring that onwards.

Somebody has said somewhat jokingly – but I think it’s fair to repeat it – that the international community is the group of countries that happen to be interested in any particular issue, and the United States of America, because you’re always there.

And hence, we always work with you when we try to engage through peace processes, through other dialogue processes with countries in transition and with countries that need international help. And it’s always good to have a close contact on these issues, and we have reaffirmed that today.

So with those few words, I just want to say again that it’s really good to be here in Washington today.

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FOREIGN MINISTER EIDE (question on Syria): Well, we work closely with the Syrian opposition. We have provided humanitarian aid, and we are also now working and trying to help them to set up local council inside Syria, and more and more assistance is happening on the inside. We have, as of now at least, not been supporting of actively arming the rebels, and I think our position is quite similar to the position of the United States of America. But we are very clear, President Assad has lost all credibility, he must go. We need to work with the Syrian opposition, we need to help them to unify, we need to help them to consolidate messages, and we need to make sure that the Security Council finally is able to come to a kind of joint position in this issue. And I think on these issues we are very much of the same approach.

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FOREIGN MINISTER EIDE (question on the Middle East conflict): It is really important that the President and the Secretary of State is going there now. I think we really want – need now to install some kind of hope for a political horizon for this process. The work that we have been doing for many years now as the chair of the Donors Committee, which consists of the European Union, the U.S., several European countries, several Arab states and Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is to coordinate the economic effort to build the institutions of the Palestinian state.

And we declared already in 2011 that they had reached a level of maturity, which means that the institutions are actually in place that could fulfill the role, given that the political settlement is found.

And we will continue to do so, but we also agreed today that this effort is only – only gives meaning as long as there is a political horizon, because the people on the Palestinian side, particularly in the West Bank, who are investing in these institutions, they do so because they believe that at the outcome there will be a two-state solution. And we can’t go on forever. So we really – so 2013 is going to be a very important year in order to reinstall a belief in a negotiated settlement, which is the – actually the only reason that we keep working to build institutions bottom up.

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FOREIGN MINISTER EIDE (question on Kenya): And I want to say that first, I want to agree that there are disputes in the – over the Kenyan elections. We are not interfering into that. But we just recommend strongly that those disputes are settled according to the new laws that were set up after the debacle that we had last time around. And so far, this has been a much more peaceful process than five years ago.

Norway was very active when the ICC was set up, and of course we expect anyone – elected or not – to cooperate with the institutions. And we do register that as of now, Ruto, Kenyatta has made clear his readiness to cooperate with the ICC. And of course here, as everywhere else, there’s the presumption of innocence until judged. So as long as he cooperates, that’s important for us.

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FOREIGN MINISTER EIDE (question on Syria): I just want to say that in the case of Syria, what is most important now is that the international community, and particularly the Security Council, aligns itself and comes out with a clear message on how to move forward towards a political process, which would – must include the end of the Assad regime, a kind of controlled end, and we should all support that.

We can all play our roles in the humanitarian side. We support the opposition. We try to work with local council of the opposition. But this is really an area where more than sort of special roles, we need to have a collective effort and that whatever we do is well aligned with an overarching mission.

And since Sudan and South Sudan was mentioned, I do think we should really underline the fact that it’s really good news that, after a lot of work, an agreement has been found today about reopening the oil exports from South Sudan through pipelines in Sudan. And this is an area where the U.S., Norway, and the U.K. have been working very closely together for many years.

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More info: See the website of the U.S. State Department.