Norway today opened a new Embassy in Beirut, replacing the office administratively managed by the Norwegian Embassy in Damascus.
22/10/2007 ::
Norway today opened a new Embassy in Beirut, replacing the office administratively managed by the Norwegian Embassy in Damascus.
The new Embassy is headed by Ms. Aud Lise Norheim, Chargé d’Affaires a. i., who took up her duties today. Ms. Norheim until recently served as Norway’s ambassador to Bangladesh, where she was responsible for a sizeable bilateral cooperation program. She comes to Beirut from a position as Chief of Staff for the Norwegian Minister of Development Cooperation.
Norway’s Prime Minister, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, visited Lebanon in December 2006. During his visit, he promised that Norway would open a new Embassy in Beirut and would establish a program of cooperation with Lebanon, in addition to providing an MTB squadron for six months to UNIFIL’s Naval Task Force. At the Paris Conference, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre pledged Norwegian support for Lebanon totalling USD 16 million in 2007.
The first new cooperation activity was the Oil for Development program, starting in February 2007, which aims to prepare Lebanon for the management of possible petroleum resources in the offshore Exclusive Economic Zone. This program was recently extended for another two years till the end of 2009. An environmental cooperation agreement between Lebanon and Norway will be signed by Ms. Norheim this week, providing support for phase two of the Ministry of Environment’s coastal oil spill cleanup. Norway had provided equipment in August 2006 for the first phase of the cleanup.
Norway’s traditional humanitarian assistance will be continued, this year totalling some USD 10 million The funds have been allocated to demining efforts and humanitarian relief work through UN organizations, the Red Cross and the locally established NGOs Norwegian Peoples Aid, Norwegian Aid Committee and Norwegian Refugee Council.