Norwegian Parliamentary Committee not satisfied with Foreign Minister’s answer

Norway update:

Parliamentary Committee not satisfied
with Foreign Minister's answer

"...which other investigations and quality control

of information [received] from the PA,

[did] the Foreign Ministry perform[ed],"

Committee asks in new letter

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik   

In Norway the debate over the country's aid to the PA and the question whether the Norwegian Foreign Ministry has misinformed Parliament continues.

In a new letter, the Parliamentary Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs has asked the Norwegian Foreign Ministry what it did to corroborate the information it received from the PA in 2011. Last month, the Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the information from the PA which it passed on to Parliament was "incorrect".

The Committee asked "which other investigations and quality control of information [received] from the PA, the Foreign Ministry performed before [it] received the information from the Norwegian Representative Office [in the PA] on Sept. 5, 2011." 

The Committee's reference to the date Sept. 5, 2011, refers to the day the PA supplied incorrect information to the Norwegian Representative Office. The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Espen Barth Eide, called the information supplied by the PA "imprecise." [March 11, 2013]

As regards the Committee's question to the Foreign Ministry about verification of the PA's information before presenting it to MPs, Palestinian Media Watchnotes that whereas the PA's incorrect information was supplied to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry in response to PMW's report on PA payment of salaries to prisoners, the Foreign Ministry never once has turned to PMW for clarification or elaboration of our reports and their sources.

Click to see PDF of the English translation of the Committee's second letter

 To review how the story has been developing in Norway:

Click to see PMW's findings generated this debate in Norway, the responses of Norwegian MPs, the Parliamentary Committee investigationquestioning why the Foreign Ministry did not give the correct information to parliament earlier.

Click to see how the Parliamentary Committee expressed dissatisfaction with the Foreign Minister's first answer, and how the Foreign Minister in his second letter admitted that the PA has special support program for prisoners, including terrorists, in Israel.

Click to see the UK Parliament debate of PMW's findings about PA hate incitement and UK's funding of the PA.

The following is the newest letter from the Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs to the Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide: