- 20 January, Borregaard manor, Sarpsborg, First meeting
- 12 February, Borregaard manor, “The Sarpsborg document”
- March, Sarpsborg
- April, Holmenkollen Park Hotel, Oslo
- 20 May, The Heftye villa, Oslo, Uri Savir joins
- 11 June, Norum Hotel, Oslo, Joel Singer joins
- 3 July, Grefsheim, Nes i Ringsaker, Israeli draft of principles
- 10 July, Halvorsbøle by Randsfjorden
- 24 July, Halvorsbøle
- 13 August, Sarpsborg, Breakthrough
- 20 August, Parkveien 45, Oslo, Secret signing
- 13 September, The White House, Washington, Public signing
The Oslo negotiations at Grefsheim
Secret talks between Israel and the PLO, July 1993
On Saturday 3 July 1993 Israeli and Palestinian negotiators arrived at Grefsheim. They were taking part in the secret talks that would later lead to the Oslo Accord.
Anne Lise and Johan Mellbye were the hosts. They had been told to prepare for a large group of guests, but did not know who would be coming until the cars drove into the farmyard.
The Palestinians stayed in the main house, the Israelis in another house on the farm. The negotiations took place in the drawing room, often late into the night.
Six officers from the Norwegian Police Security Service guarded the delegations. Johan felt the men in dark suits were attracting rather too much attention, and set some of them to mowing the lawn and trimming the hedge.
During the stay the cows broke out. Both the Israeli chief negotiator Uri Savir and the Palestinians' Abu Ala were keen to help round them up. The bodyguards were more sceptical.
I · The negotiations at Grefsheim
The Grefsheim document
The secret talks had begun in January 1993, after the official peace negotiations in Washington had stalled. Norway provided meeting places and practical arrangements, while the Israelis and Palestinians negotiated themselves.
At Grefsheim the Israeli delegation presented a new draft declaration of principles. The Palestinians felt the proposal went back on earlier concessions, including on Palestinian self-government and Israeli control.
The delegations went on working on the text throughout their stay. Terje Rød-Larsen borrowed Johan's PC and printer, which were used during the negotiations. For a while it looked as if the parties might reach agreement, and State Secretary Jan Egeland was called in.
But the disagreements could not be resolved. When the delegations left Grefsheim they had no finished agreement. They did, however, take with them a revised draft declaration of principles, later described by the historian Hilde Henriksen Waage as The Grefsheim document.
The negotiations continued elsewhere in Norway. On 20 August the declaration of principles was signed in secret in Oslo, and on 13 September came the public signing in front of the White House in Washington.
II · When the secret came out
Journalists on the doorstep
After the visit everyone at Grefsheim was bound to secrecy. When VG rang and asked whether secret negotiations had taken place on the farm, Anne Lise and Johan therefore said no.
They immediately contacted Jan Egeland, who told them the information had now been released. He had simply forgotten to let them know. Before the call was over, the journalists were practically on the doorstep.
VG wrote about Grefsheim on 10 September 1993 and published pictures from, among other places, the drawing room and the library. Two days later the paper ran the headline “Here they laid the foundations for peace in the Middle East”.
III · Thanks from the negotiators
The thanks in Parkveien
In January 1994 Anne Lise and Johan were invited to the government's official residence in Parkveien, where Uri Savir and Abu Ala were to be honoured for their work on the Oslo Accord.
Savir gave a speech of his own and thanked them for opening their home to the negotiators. He stressed that the meeting at Grefsheim had been important for the work that followed, even though it had not produced an agreement there.
On a poster reading “Welcome to Grefsheim”, signed by several of the participants, Abu Ala wrote:
«A place which we will never forget.»
Meetings in the Oslo channel, 1993After Store norske leksikon
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Johan Mellbye's account of the visit.
Anne Lise Mellbye's recollections.
VG, 10 and 12 September 1993.
Store norske leksikon: “Oslo-kanalen”
Hilde Henriksen Waage's research on the Oslo channel.
Cohen-Almagor, Raphael: Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Critical Study of Peace Negotiations, Mediation and Facilitation Between Israel and the PLO.
The episode with the cows is based on family information. The date on which the poster was signed has not been finally established.