The architects of the Oslo agreement in disgrace and historical documents recovered

The Oslo Accords, which came in the fall of 1993, were the first direct peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). At the same time as support for the agreement has eroded in the Middle East, the architects behind the settlement have fallen into disrepute.

The Norwegian top diplomats Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen are today involved in the tangle surrounding financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Norwegian ecocrime agency Økokrim is investigating whether they have been guilty of gross corruption and aiding and abetting gross corruption.

During a search of the couple's shared home, several moving boxes containing historical and secret documents were found. It could be documents that historian Hilde Henriksen Waage at the University of Oslo has been looking for for decades.

She has highlighted on several occasions that there is a lack of material from the Oslo process in the official archives of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These are documents from the period January to September 1993 – minutes of meetings, notes and letters that can tell more about Norway's role in the process.

Now she has received notice that she will have access to the contents of the basement boxes.

The question is whether the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and its head at the time - Norway's current Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre - could have facilitated the researchers' access to the material.

Terje Rød-Larsen already declared in 2006 that he did not intend to release documents from his private archive.

- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs lacked the powers to determine what kind of documents he had, Støre said when he participated in the Storting's hearing on Epstein and the culture of the foreign administration on Wednesday.

He believes that it is good that the researchers now have access to the material from the basement storage.

- I cannot draw any conclusions as to whether the documents should have been archived under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it is good that the documents have been found, so we get an overview. I hope that the researchers get full access to what they should have access to, he says.

At the same time as the questioning is going on in the Storting, top diplomat Jan Egeland chooses to enter the debate about Norway's efforts in the Oslo process. He was corresponding cabinet secretary at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and central to the negotiations in the 90s.

- It was very inflated, he says to Norwegian NRK.

Egeland thinks that there was far too much focus on the efforts of the Norwegians - and above all the efforts of two married couples. One couple was Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen, the other was the then foreign minister Johan Jørgen Holst and his wife Marianne Heiberg.

He believes that it was a game of chance that made Norway participate in the work.

- We were facilitators, not peacemakers, he says.

The Oslo agreement has been portrayed as a piece of genius diplomatic work. Egeland is asked by NRK if he thinks that description fits.

- No, I don't want to say that, he replies.