Happy birthday Thorvald!

Thorvald Stoltenberg (born July 8th, 1931) is seen as the founder of the Barents Cooperation. Stoltenberg was Norway’s Foreign Minister when he in April 1992 at a meeting in Tromsø launched the idea to formalize cooperation on a state-level and regional-level across the east-west borders in northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

Interviewed by several Norwegian media on his 80-years birthday, Thorvald Stoltenberg says the most important thing he has done in his career is the establishment of the Barents Cooperation.

On January 11th 1993, Thorvald Stoltenberg signed the Kirkenes declaration on cooperation in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region together with his Foreign Ministers colleagues; Andrey Kozyrev (Russia), Margaretha Ugglas (Sweden), Pavvo Värynen (Finland), Jørgen Østrøm Møller (Denmark), Jon Sigurdsson (Iceland) and Aneurin Rhys Hughes (European Commission).

He is a lawyer by training, studying International law and International relations.

In addition to serving as Foreign Ministers for two periods for the Norwegian Government, 1987-1989 and 1990-1993, Thorvald Stoltenberg was Minister of Defense in the period 1979-1981. Stoltenberg represented the Labor Party. His son Jens Stoltenberg later became Prime Minister for three Norwegian governments.

Besides of being a politician, Thorvald Stoltenberg has a career as diplomat with Norway’s Foreign Service from the late 50ties. He was Norwegian Ambassador to the UN from 1989 to 1990, and ended his formal diplomatic carrier as Ambassador to Denmark from 1996 to 1999.

In front, and after the period as Foreign Minister initiating the Barents Cooperation, Thorvald Stoltenberg had important positions with the UN. He was UN High Commissioner for Refugees for a short period in 1990 and in 1993 he was appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for the former Yugoslavia.

Also after retirement from official positions, Thorvald Stoltenberg continued to hold a strong focus on the east-west people-to-people cooperation within the Barents Region, participating at conferences, writing articles and visiting events in the region. For this work, Stoltenberg was in 2011 appointed the first ever Honorary Doctor of the Arctic University in Arkhangelsk.

Additional to the Barents Cooperation, he is a strong supporter of tighter cooperation between the Nordic countries. In 2009, Thorvald Stoltenberg presented a proposal for all Nordic Foreign Ministers on how the Nordic countries can establish better links in Security and Foreign Policy. The proposal included several new fields of military cooperation, although not any alliance-structures.

Stoltenberg has authored several books, especially on international relations and conflicts prevention.