Larsen's quest for Mideast peace
By Donna Abu-Nasr
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP): He is the man who cannot please anybody.
In his seven years as peace broker between Arabs and Israelis, Terje Roed-Larsen of Norway has been accused of favoring one side over the other, of having his own agenda and of being -- depending on who's hurling the charge -- a CIA, Zionist, PLO, Syrian or Lebanese agent.
He still receives threats from extremist Israelis who hold him responsible for the disintegration of their dream of Eretz Yisrael -- control over all the biblical land of Israel.
As a third party in a conflict where emotions run high, "aggressions are diverted and they hit you," Larsen said in an interview.
Despite all that, Larsen, who as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's top envoy to the Middle East has just finished overseeing the demarcation of the Lebanese-Israeli border, has been one of the most successful figures in bringing the Mideast parties closer than they have ever been in 52 years of conflict.
The emotional toll of working in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust has not diminished his passion for his mission.
Larsen, 52, burst onto the international scene in August 1993 when word emerged of the secret talks that brought the historic Oslo peace accord between Palestinians and Israelis.
Larsen, a researcher at the time, and his wife, Mona Juul, who worked at the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, were two of the architects of those talks.
Larsen smiles when he recalls the negotiations, in which a group of academics and mostly lower-level officials accomplished something that had eluded more seasoned politicians from more powerful nations.
Except for a brief period as Norway's planning minister, Larsen has been a major player in Mideast peacemaking ever since.
He said the secret talks in Oslo allowed representatives of the two sides to get to know each other and to think in new ways about possible resolutions.
"The only one thing that can establish mutual trust, understanding and empathy is that the parties start relating to each other and learn about each other," Larsen said.
"I don't think either the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin or then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at the beginning of Oslo even would have liked to contemplate the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state. Today, Shimon Peres is the strongest advocate for a Palestinian state."
On the Lebanese-Israeli front, the parties don't talk directly to each other. Even though Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May, no agreements will be signed between the two states until Israel's conflict with Syria is resolved. Those negotiations are on hold, snagged on the issue of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized in the 1966 Mideast war.
Larsen said the most challenging part of his job is dealing with the emotional aspect of the negotiations.
"You get so much aggression ... addressed against you, less in public than in private, in the meetings where emotions are running really high," he said.
To live with suspicion and aggression, "particularly when you know it's incredibly unfair, to tackle the emotional dimension of the negotiations is probably the most difficult part of the job."
To relax, the tall Norwegian with salt and pepper hair is often seen jogging in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza. He also believes it is vital to maintain a sense of humor, a tool he likes to use in negotiations to defuse tension.
Larsen said that sometimes a mediator acting as a facilitator rather than negotiator helps move talks along more.
In the Oslo talks, Larsen and his wife rejected a request by the Palestinian and Israeli delegates to be in the same room with them.
"I told them: 'You own the problems. You own the solutions.' We didn't feel that a third party should force a solution because they wouldn't be able to live with it." Larsen's involvement in Mideast issues was a result of an idle lifestyle. In 1988, his wife was transferred to the Norwegian Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. He took leave from his job as head of a research institute in Oslo to follow her.
"I became bored by staying idle in Cairo and kicking sand on the banks of the Nile," he said.
So when the brother of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat approached Larsen at a reception and asked if he'd conduct a study of Palestinian living conditions in Gaza and the West Bank, then under Israeli occupation, the Norwegian immediately accepted.
The experience proved a valuable preparation for the more complex mission ahead. To carry out the study, he needed to employ 150 Palestinians and Norwegians -- a job that took two years of negotiations with the Israelis, introducing Larsen to the parties and the issues.
Following the Oslo agreement, which was signed on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, Larsen was sent by then UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to Gaza as a special coordinator for the occupied territories.
Over the next couple of years, he helped arrange the first meeting between then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Arafat and brokered the Oslo II accord on the West Bank.
In October 1996, Larsen left to become Norway's minister of planning. He resigned that job a month later after a relentless news media probe that raised questions about his decade-old investments and tax breaks. He was ordered to pay a small fine in a tax-evasion case, but no criminal charges were filed.
Larsen remained in touch with the parties in the Middle East, then in January 1998 was appointed Norway's special envoy for the Middle East. A year later, Annan asked him to be the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace effort.
Since then, Larsen has been shuttling between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. He was the main force behind an international donors conference held in Beirut this summer to drum up aid for the rebuilding of southern Lebanon.
There have been press reports the United Nations may have a role in delineating another border, the Israeli-Syrian frontier after any settlement between those foes. However, Larsen said there has not yet been a request for such help.