Oslo - Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store flew
Tuesday to New York to attend a meeting of the UN Security Council on
the crisis in Gaza.
Store is currently chair of an international donors group for the
Palestinians, known as Ad Hoc Liaison Committee.
Oslo has joined calls for an end to the violence and urged Israel
to halt its recent ground offensive in Gaza.
Norway was also to review its holdings in companies that have
operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories against the
backdrop of the increased violence, Finance Minister Kristin
Halvorsen said.
Halvorsen has asked a special ethics panel that advises the
government on its holdings in Norway's state pension fund to conduct
the review.
The fund invests in some 7,000 companies worldwide. The fund
includes the huge Petroleum Fund and is managed by the central bank.
It was created to pay for Norway's future health and pension
expenditures through investments outside the Norwegian economy.
Halvorsen noted that earlier reviews have not revealed any
breaches of human rights or ethical guidelines in Israel or the
Palestinian territories.
In a related development, a member of the Norwegian Labour Party
urged Israeli President Shimon Peres to return his Nobel Peace Prize
that he shared in 1994 with the late Israeli and Palestinian leaders
Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
Parliament member Espen Johnsen told news agency NTB that Peres'
defence of the offensive in Gaza was 'horrific' and that the veteran
Israeli politician was 'not worthy' of the award.
Nobel Committee secretary Geir Lundestad said 'it has never
occurred that a laureate has returned the award after receiving it.'
However, the 1973 co-winner Le Duc Tho of Vietnam declined to
accept it when he was named along with Henry Kissinger of the US for
negotiating the Vietnam peace accord, Lundestad noted.
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