Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Monday thelocal.no - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thelocal.no Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Norway gets tougher on US’ spying
June 3, 2021
The Norwegian government toughened its stand against alleged US spying Thursday, calling in US Embassy officials in Oslo to explain themselves. The meeting at Norway’s Defense Ministry was the Norwegian way of expressing its displeasure with what otherwise is the country’s most important ally.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg has already stated that espionage against your own allies is “unacceptable.” At issue is whether Danish officials perhaps unwittingly helped US intelligence agents gain access several years ago to cables that run through Denmark, and thus gain access to top politicians’ communication in Norway, Sweden, Germany and France. Solberg called Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Thursday to stress that it’s also “unnecessary to spy on your friends and allies.”
OSLO Norway said on Thursday it had summoned the US embassy's top official in Oslo to lodge an official protest following a report that Washington had spied on Norwegian and other European leaders. "The defence ministry held a meeting with the US embassy in Oslo today where we made it clear that spying on allies is unacceptable and unnecessary," Norway's Defence Minister
Article content
The US National Security Agency (NSA) used a partnership with Denmark’s foreign intelligence unit to spy on senior officials of neighbouring countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Danish state broadcaster DR said.
The findings are the result of a 2015 internal investigation in the Danish Defence Intelligence Service into NSA’s role in the partnership, DR said, citing nine unnamed sources with access to the investigation.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or Investigation reveals U.S. spied on Merkel and other European officials through Danish cables Back to video
According to the investigation, which covered the period from 2012 to 2014, the NSA used Danish information cables to spy on senior officials in Sweden, Norway, France and Germany, including former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and former German opposition leader Peer Steinbrück.