NATO’s Norwegian chief Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Børge Brende were among those attending a meeting of the Coalition against terror organization IS in Washington DC on Wednesday, and who all condemned Wednesday’s terrorist attack in London. Norway’s own police intelligence service was evaluating the terrorist threat level, as support poured in for London residents.
Both Stoltenberg and Brende expressed their condolences to British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who also was in Washington for the coalition meeting this week. Stoltenberg declared that all of NATO’s allies stood together in the fight against terror and in solidarity with Great Britain.
The anti-IS coalition consists of 65 countries and three organizations: the EU, Interpol and The Arab League. Also among those attending Wednesday’s meeting were Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu, who also has become involved in a diplomatic conflict with Norway over its granting of asylum to five Turkish diplomats and officers in Oslo.
Norway has close relations with Britain and especially London, which is a popular and frequent destination for Norwegian business travelers, students and tourists – so popular that the Norwegian Foreign Ministry quickly sent out a message after Tuesday afternoon’s attacks to Norwegians in London to contact their next of kin. By early evening they determined that no Norwegians were involved in the attacks.
Messages of support for London and its residents were flourishing on social media, Norwegians were urging one another to go ahead with planned trips and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) reported no signs of cancelled bookings. Norway’s police intelligence unit PST (Politiets sikkerhetstjenesten) reported that it was following the situation in London closely and evaluating terror threat levels in Norway accordingly. They made no immediate changes.
newsinenglish.no staff