Terje Rød-Larsen

Terje Rød-Larsen (born 22 November 1947) is a Norwegian diplomat, politician and sociologist.

He came to wide international prominence as a key figure in the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords, when he served as the Director of the Fafo institute. In 1993, he 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 Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories at the rank of Under-Secretary-General. He briefly served as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Planning and Cooperation of Norway in the Jagland cabinet in 1996, and 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.

Since 2004, he has been the president of the International Peace Institute.

Rød-Larsen grew up in Bergen and studied social sciences, culminating in a Ph.D. in sociology. He taught at Norwegian universities until 1981, when he helped found FAFO, a research organization funded by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions.

In 1989 Rød-Larsen moved to Cairo, when his wife Mona Juul, who worked for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 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, Gaza and Eastern Jerusalem. In the course of this work, Rød-Larsen made contacts that proved to be useful in secret negotiations between Israel and the PLO. His wife was able to facilitate high-level contacts with the Norwegian foreign minister, Johan Jørgen Holst, who was instrumental in reaching the Oslo Accords in 1993. The same year Rød-Larsen became formally employed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a special advisor on Middle Eastern affairs.

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