This week's NATO summit in Washington marks 75 years of alliance among countries all over the world. Among the founding members is Norway.
Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide spoke with VOA regarding the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, expressing full support for the country in its attempt to join the alliance. Eide also touched on Norway’s struggles bordering Russia.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Russia hit Ukrainian civilian targets, including a children's hospital, right before the NATO summit started. What kind of signal do you think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin tried to send by doing that this way? And what did he receive in the result? Did he influence the decisions of the NATO summit, and how?
Well, if it influences the decisions, that will just help us to be even bolder and stronger in our messaging that Putin shall not prevail. We cannot accept that kind of behavior in Europe. It breaks international law; it breaks the U.N. Charter. It's a gross violation of international humanitarian law. But his entire behavior is a deep breach with also the European security architecture that was developed many years ago and which all countries signed up to, which is that we should respect the invariability of borders. And all these rules are being broken, and we cannot let him prevail, so we support Ukraine. We stand in solidarity with the proud and very dedicated people of Ukraine, but we also do this because we cannot allow this kind of behavior in Europe.
The Ukrainian delegation is calling for and has discussions about removing all red lines on striking with weapons provided by Western countries on Russian territory. What is Norway’s position on this?
Our principal position is that as long as the military operations of Ukraine are in line with international law, with the U.N. Charter, they should be able to use weapons to the best effect for defending Ukraine. The international law is very clear: If you are attacked, you can fight back at the attacker, also on the territory of the attacker. So, for instance, if an attack on Kharkiv is happening from Russian soil, it is perfectly within international law to fight back at the base of that attack.
Ukraine is trying to become a member of NATO. Norway joined NATO as one of the founding members and not everyone was happy about that, and you had your own struggle. Can you tell us if there are any lessons from Norway that Ukraine can apply in this situation, given it's also about Russia?
We were among the 12 countries that started NATO here in Washington 75 years ago and since then our border with Russia has been very stable because we were a NATO member. We have been very clear toward Russia that we are not threatening Russia from Norwegian soil, but we have the biggest military power in the world as our ally, and if they [the Russians] threaten us, we will respond collectively. That has been extremely important.
Aren’t you threatened by Russia now, because of its possible attacks on infrastructure grid, oil, gas, undersea infrastructures and fiber optics?
Since relations between Europe and Russia broke down, Norway is the number one energy provider to Europe. We are the biggest exporter of oil, gas and also of electricity because we have deep interconnections of electricity. All this goes through the North Sea and down to the continent. So, of course, we are very eager to make sure that our undersea infrastructure is safe. And we're working with NATO allies, particularly Germany, on patrolling and looking after, both over subsea and on sea, what is happening around our infrastructure. In the Nordic-Baltic cooperation where the five Nordic and three Baltic states are cooperating particularly closely, all of them now being NATO members after also Sweden joined, this is the topic that we are putting frequently on the NATO agenda: the hybrid threats stemming from Russia, potential threats, and real threats to critical infrastructure, internet cables, telephony, electricity and so on.
Can a cyberattack be a reason to invoke Article 5 [of the NATO treaty, which says an armed attack against one NATO ally is considered an attack against all the allies]?
