Norway is one of the UK's closest allies and the breadth of Foreign Policy issues on which we work together reflects this. Among the most important of these are the following:

NATO and Afghanistan

The UK and Norway are both members of NATO and our Ministers meet regularly to discuss the big NATO issues like enlargement and reform. In Afghanistan the UK and Norway both run Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and our forces work well together on the ground. Both the UK and Norway are major donors to reconstruction and development in Afghanistan.

Conflict Resolution and Peace Building

This is an issue which is top of agendas in both the UK and Norway. Norway has valuable experience in the Middle East Peace Process and the UK and Norway co-hosted one of the recent international meetings on the Peace Process in London (the Ad Hoc Liason Committee meeting last May). The UK and Norway also work closely together to try to help to build lasting peace in a number of African countries. As members of the Peace Building Commission the UK and Norway are working to support peace in Burundi and Sierra Leone. In Sudan the UK worked closely with Norway and other partners to help to bring about the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 and we are now working to try to preserve and build on that. Both our countries believe it is important to offer not just money but civilian expertise to help build peace after conflict. David Miliband wrote on this subject in Dagbladet when he visited Norway in May 08.

Disarmament

The UK and Norway share a commitment to nuclear disarmament. UK academics and officials recently attended an international conference on this subject in Oslo. We are both strong supporters of an international Arms Trade Treaty and the UK has been closely involved in the Norwegian led Cluster Munitions Convention which both countries signed in Oslo in December. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband travelled to Oslo to sign the Convention.

British and Norwegian Ministers meet to discuss these and other issues regularly. Visits of British Ministers to Norway in 2008 included:

• Mike O'Brien, Minister for Energy and Climate Change in October to speak at a conference on renewable energy
• Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister in the Foreign Office for Asia, Africa and the UN attended the Oslo Mediators' Forum in June
• David Miliband, Foreign Secretary visited Norway in May for official talks with Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and in December to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions
• Gareth Thomas, Parliamentary Under secretary of State for Development visited Norway in February for a meeting with his Nordic colleagues