Former Norwegian PM held at Dulles for questioning over a prior trip to Iran

RT
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 20:57 UTC

Kjell Magne Bondevik

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was held and questioned at a US airport because of a stamp in his diplomatic passport stemming from a 2014 visit to Iran. The hold-up, which he says has nothing to do with Trump's travel ban, had him "provoked".

Bondevik, who twice served as a Prime Minister of Norway and is still eligible to a diplomatic travel document, was held earlier this week at a Dulles air hub outside Washington DC.

He was travelling to the US to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, a string of high-profile gatherings attended by international guests and religious leaders following the inauguration of the new US President.

However, Bondevik was taken aside by the US airport staff and unceremoniously bundled into a room with people from the Middle East who were also subjected to checks. After waiting for over half an hour, he was questioned for 20 minutes over his visit to Iran, before being allowed in.

"They began to ask me why I had been in Iran and what I was going to do in the US," he told the Norwegian TV2. Bondevik, who currently serves as President of the The Oslo Centre human rights organization, was in Iran in 2014 to deliver a speech.

"It seems as though when the name of one of the banned countries comes up, they [US] now put up the barbed wire," the former PM said. "I became quite provoked," Bondevik noted, recalling that he was in the US on a number of official visits and that the incident represented "unnecessary suspicion."

In January, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a blanket ban on all Syrian asylum seekers until major changes were made to the asylum program. Citing national security concerns, the order also prohibited citizens from six Arab nations, including Iran, from entering the United States for three months, sparking an uproar both inside and outside the US.

Bondevik, however, said he wasn't stopped because of Trump's travel ban, but as a result of a law issued under former President Obama following the terrorist attacks in Paris and California.

In an interview with ABC7, the former PM said he understands the fears in Washington over potential terrorist threats.

However, "it should be enough when they found that I have a diplomatic passport, [that I am a] former prime minister," Bondevik told the news outlet.

He added that the respective document and his former status should have been reason enough "to understand that I don't represent any problem or threat to this country and [to] let me go immediately, but they didn't."

The former Norwegian PM, who has been a vocal advocate of peace efforts and reconciliation attempts across the world, now says the latest step by the new US leader raises concerns. "You shouldn't treat entire groups of people in this manner," he told TV2.

"I have to admit I fear the future (with Trump as president). There's been a lot of progress in the world the last few decades, but this gives great cause for concern, along with the authoritarian leaders we see steering other large countries."

Comment: What progress is he referring to?

Reader Comments

Baybars · 2017-02-04T00:40:46Z

Norway. A rich monarchy [Link] that isn't about to be fractured by dissenting political views or parties. Was first to begin drive towards cashless society. Now hosting U.S. troops against Russia [Link] I wonder what King Harald I [Link] will have to say to Trump about this?

Will stuff like this push the king towards Russia? any Norwegians here that can answer that?

Protectron · 2017-02-04T01:41:17Z

Norwegian here

King Harald is purely a symbolic figurehead, and has pretty much no political power at all. Just like all the other "monarchies" of Europe.

U.S troops have been training in northern Norway for a few weeks each year since as long as I can remember, probably for as long as the country has been a member of NATO. Nothing new there. The report that US troops were training on the Norwegian border to Russia was so imprecise that it became a diplomatic embarassment after a while; they were training roughly 1000 kilometers by air from the border, closer to Finland's and Sweden's Northwesternmost territories than Russia.

I live near the Russian border, and work with Russians every day. Nobody here fears an invasion from the East. The locals aren't afraid at all. The same thing can't be said about Oslo, where the power resides. They believe NATO and EU propaganda where Russia is seen as a threat to Western world domination. Which means that yes, Norway is being pushed against Russia, just like all the other countries in Europe.

Baybars · 2017-02-04T01:59:45Z

Protectron Hi, thank you very much for your comment. If the monarch has little power then what political party is sucking up to the EU and what party want's closer ties with Russia?

Protectron · 2017-02-04T10:07:40Z

Baybars I don't think any political party want closer ties with Russia. The Socialistic Left Party wants out of NATO and says no to any military activity abroad, but they're a very small party. The rest follows the UN religiously. The Conservatives is the biggest pro-EU party, but even the pro members there are in a minority in their own party. The people at large are strongly against joining the EU (75% vs 25% in recent polls), so even parties that were pro-EU in the 1994 referendum and retain a pro-EU stance now avoid the question like the plague because even mentioning it at this point would be political suicide.

Norway has been a good dog and the Government has been accepting and implementing EU directives better and more efficiently than all other nations in the EU and EEA (Norway's a member of the latter, to gain access to the European market). Leaving the EEA is as much a non-subject politically as joining the EU is.

Military spending has been very low for decades, so the recent reports of a "historic increase" still doesn't mean that Norway's flexing muscles here in the high North. Our only spy ship was replaced with a new one last year, and most of any extra money will go to the new fighter jets we bought from the US (which are yet to come, due to scandals and whatnot). The navy is scrapping ships due to a lack of funds, and military bases are closed one after another. So no, the "new cold war" that foreign media is reporting, is simply anti-Russian propaganda with no basis in reality.