Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway visits the OSCE Academy

On 13 September the OSCE Academy was honored to welcome Ambassador Knut Vollebæk, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway and currently the Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). Among the numerous high-level positions held by Ambassador Vollebæk are his OSCE Chairmanship in 1999, his duties as OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) from 2007-2013, Chairperson of the UN Advisory Board on Human Security, and numerous high-ranking diplomatic positions. In his dialogue with the Academy Director Dr. Alexander Wolters, Ambassador Vollebæk shared his experience in working in the above mentioned positions and the challenges he faced and the opportunities his various mandates offered. In more detail he described his role during the Kosovo crisis as Chairman of OSCE, the 9/11 tragic events in the United States of America at the beginning of his term as a Norwegian Ambassador to the US, and the rewarding position as the OSCE HCNM which allowed, among other things, meetings with the many representatives of the civil society across the OSCE region.

The Academy’s students were eager to learn the Ambassador’s opinion on the role of civil society in democratization processes; the changes the OSCE as an organization might face in light of all the developments of the last decade; OSCE-Afghanistan relations; the future of the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, and the future of nationalism in Central Asia and Europe.

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