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Interview with Thorvald Stoltenberg

Thorvald Stoltenberg
Photo: Stig Brøndbo

By Stig Brøndbo, Journalist/Communications Advisor, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

The former Foreign Minister of Norway, Thorvald Stoltenberg, was not pleased when he first heard about the plans for the Arctic Council.

Today the 84-year-old former minister and diplomat celebrates the 20-year anniversary of the Arctic Council with great happiness. "We need the Arctic Council as an arena for circumpolar cooperation, but I have to admit that Norway was not a driving force in the creation of the Arctic Council back then. We did not try to stop or postpone it in any way, we just did not encourage it," explains Stoltenberg.

Stoltenberg was foreign minister of Norway from 1987–1989 and 1990–1993. During the last part of the 1980s, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev had a new approach and a new policy towards the West. In a speech in 1987 he encouraged new forms of cooperation in the North between the East and the West. "When I became the Foreign Minister three years later, politicians in the northern parts of Norway had been discussing some kind of regional cooperation for years. My focus was on establishing Barents cooperation, and I did not want the Arctic Council to come in its way," Stoltenberg says.

His first approval on forming a regional platform for people to-people contact and business cooperation came from the Russian Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev. "When I called him the first time he was very positive, but he needed to get consent from President Yeltsin. When he called me back the day after, we never looked back."

In 1993 the Kirkenes Declaration was signed, establishing the Barents Euro-Arctic Council. "During the first years there were several attempts to make Barents cooperation into something more like today’s Arctic Council, and to me that was taking it in the wrong direction. We needed a more local arena, not a big geopolitical stage," says Stoltenberg.

When he saw that Barents cooperation was strong enough to survive its creation Stoltenberg strongly supported the Arctic Council. "But as I predicted back then, the Arctic Council will have geopolitical challenges that Barents cooperation does not have to take into consideration," Stoltenberg concludes.

Table of Contents

  1. Letter from the Editor in Chief

    By Outi Snellman

  2. 20 Years of Peaceful Cooperation

    By Børge Brende

  3. Celebrating 20 Years of the Arctic Council

    By David Balton

  4. International Cooperation for Arctic Prosperity

    By Sergey Lavrov

  5. Minister Greetings: Finland

    By Timo Soini

  6. Minister Greetings: Iceland

    By Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson

  7. Setting the Stage for Arctic Cooperation

    By Eirik Sivertsen

  8. It All Started in Rovaniemi

    By Markku Heikkilä

  9. Interview with Mary Simon

    By Stig Brøndbo

  10. Interview with Alona Yefimenko

    By Stig Brøndbo

  11. Interview with Sheila Watt-Cloutier

    By Stig Brøndbo

  12. The Role of the Working Groups in the Work of the Arctic Council

    By David Stone and Lars-Otto Reiersen

  13. Science to Policy: Arctic Biodiversity Assessment

    By Tom Barry and Courtney Price

  14. The Arctic Council: A Model for Cooperation

    By Timo Koivurova

  15. The Arctic Council: A Victory for Soft Law & Soft Security

    By Heather Exner-Pirot

  16. The Arctic Council: Maintaining Peace Through Cooperation

    By Michael Byers

  17. Arctic Human Development

    By Joan Nymand Larsen and Gail Fondahl

  18. Towards Revival of Arctic Cooperation

    By Olli Rehn

  19. The Arctic Economic Council: Connecting with the Business Community

    By Tara Sweeney

  20. Love & Peace

    By Else Berit Eikeland and Gunn-Britt Retter

  21. Working Inside the Arctic Council: Arctic Change and World Reindeer Herders

    By Mikhail Pogodaev and Anders Oskal

  22. Observer States in the Arctic Council: A Way Forward to Better Cooperation

    By Justin Kim

  23. The Arctic: A Place for the Miraculous

    By Chen Yitong

  24. The Arctic Council Adapting to the Future

    By Arild Moe, Svein Vigeland Rottem and Olav Schram Stokke

  25. The Way Forward for the Arctic Council

    By Oran R. Young

  26. Student Profiles

    By students from Arctic states

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