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While the Epstein revelations absorbed all attention, three men met in a meeting room at the Grand Hotel in Oslo. A retired senior official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Utenriksdepartementet, UD) with close connections to Terje Rød-Larsen, a consultant financed through the aid budget, and a senior adviser to the Palestinian President. What did they discuss? No one will answer.
On 12 February 2026, a meeting took place between retired senior UD official Geir Otto Pedersen, NOREF Director Johan Vibe and Majdi Khaldi, who is President Mahmoud Abbas’s closest diplomatic adviser. This took place in a meeting room at the Grand Hotel in Oslo.
When the three arrived, there happened, by chance, to be two other persons in the room, a journalist from Document in conversation with a source. When Pedersen became aware of this, the trio withdrew to the innermost part of the premises. They evidently had a need to speak in private. The meeting lasted slightly more than half an hour. Document’s journalist took photographs of the three as they left the premises. Curiosity was aroused. What did they discuss? But that we are not informed of.
No Pedersen
A telephone enquiry to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yielded no results. The switchboard could find no Geir O. Pedersen. This indicates that he is no longer employed by the UD. He turned 70 last year, and his last official role was as the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, a position he relinquished last year.
The Palestinians’ “foreign minister” Majdi Khaldi (l.) and former senior UD official Geir O. Pedersen. NOREF Director Johan Vibe in the background. 12 February 2026. Photo: Kjell Erik Eilertsen
He has recently appeared in the columns on account of his friendship with Terje Rød-Larsen, and because he was, at the time, the Director General (ekspedisjonssjef) in the UD who was directly responsible for the appropriations to Rød-Larsen’s think tank and event agency in New York.
Nor could the UD assist with how one might make contact with Pedersen.
– Good opportunity
A telephone enquiry to NOREF – Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution – likewise bore no fruit. Nor did an SMS directly to Johan Vibe.
In an email to communications adviser Ragnhild Håland Simenstad at the Office of the Prime Minister (Statsministerens kontor, SMK), who was responsible for Abbas’s visit to Norway, to communications director Tuva Bogsnes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to NOREF, Document posed the following questions, to which photographs from the meeting were attached:
- How much did NOREF receive through the aid budget in 2025?
- Why did a presumably retired senior UD official and a former senior UD official/current NOREF consultant meet with what is alleged to be Abbas’s most senior adviser in what appears to be an unofficial meeting?
- What were the topics discussed at this meeting?
From the SMK there is complete silence. From the UD there is complete silence. From NOREF there comes a reply from communications director Helene Revhaug.
“The grant to NOREF in 2025 was 63.3 million. It is correct that NOREF met with a member of President Abbas’s delegation in connection with the visit to Norway earlier in February. It was a good opportunity for NOREF to receive an update on developments in the Middle East. NOREF is acquainted with the member of the delegation through work in the region.”
Thus no answer.
This was President Abbas’s first visit to Norway after Norway had recognised Palestine as an independent state, while the country was at war with Israel, a war that was triggered by a Palestinian terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. A meeting took place with President Abbas’s closest foreign policy adviser without any representatives of official Norway being present, only a retired diplomat and a director of a consultancy company financed through the aid budget.
Peace council for 715 million kroner
The grant to NOREF in 2025 means that since its establishment in 2008, under the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre, it has received a total of 715 million kroner through the aid budget. According to its website, it engages in conflict diplomacy. The staff consists of 30 employees.
Since the peace process in Palestine was initiated in the 1990s, under the auspices inter alia of Terje Rød-Larsen, Norway has contributed 17 billion kroner as of 2024.