Norway announced Wednesday it will not participate in US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” initiative, with State Secretary Kristoffer Thoner stating that “The American proposal raises a number of questions” requiring “further dialogue with the United States.”
The decision comes amid apparent tensions between Trump and Norway over the Nobel Peace Prize, which the former president has repeatedly claimed he deserved but was denied, with last year’s prize going to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado instead. Thoner confirmed that “Norway will therefore not join the proposed arrangements for the Board of Peace, and will therefore not attend a signing ceremony in Davos,” though the country would maintain close US cooperation.
The Board of Peace, originally designed to oversee Gaza’s rebuilding but with a charter suggesting broader scope, requires participating nations to pay up to $1 billion for permanent membership, with Trump serving as chairman. Norway expressed particular concern about “how this proposal is linked to established structures as the UN, and to our international commitments,” while affirming it shares Trump’s “goal of lasting peace in Ukraine, Gaza and in other situations.”
The rejection follows a message from Trump to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store stating that having been denied the Nobel Prize, he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” to which Store responded by clarifying that “the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee.”