Odd Roger Enoksen (SP) resigned as Minister of Defense after it became known that he had a sexual relationship with a young woman in the 2000s.
In an email to NTB, Enoksen stated that he informed the Prime Minister that he would resign.
“I want to apologize to those I have hurt. I have made several bad choices and assessments… my actions have made life more difficult for others,” Enoksen said.
“I have today informed my party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre that I want to resign as Minister of Defense,” Enoksen said.
Støre accepts resignation
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (AP) stated that he accepts Enoksen’s wish to resign and that he agrees with the decision.
“I was made aware of the case due to which Enoksen is resigning last night. I do not want to comment on the contents (of the case). Still, I think what emerges in the case is of a nature that is not compatible with the trust one needs to have as a minister. (That is) something I have conveyed directly to Enoksen. Therefore, it is right that he apologizes and resigns,” Støre said.
Enoksen says that it has been an honor to serve as Minister of Defense for Norway in a demanding time.
Apologizes for the inconvenience
Enoksen told the newspaper VG on Saturday that he was sorry and that he should not have had the relationship with the young woman, who first greeted him during a social gathering in Northern Norway in 2005. She later met him on a school trip to the Storting. The relationship started after the trip.
However, Enoksen said that a minister also has a private life and can have relationships outside of marriage. Enoksen is 67 years old now and was 50 years old in 2005.
“It was not a situation where I had a position of power over her,” Enoksen told VG.
Felt shame and guilt
On the other hand, the woman says that the relationship has affected her life for 15 years and that she has felt shame, guilt, and fear that she would not be believed.
She told the newspaper VG that she felt ashamed for many years, and that it wasn’t right that she had to live with it.
He used his power and his position to get what he wanted. He should not have done that, and I wish he had taken responsibility,” the woman told VG.
“Yes, I was older than her. Yes, I was a parliamentary representative first and then a minister. But I never had any power relationship over her that made her unable to go and leave at any time if she felt uncomfortable. I never had any means of pressuring her and never tried to exert any pressure,” Enoksen said.
Another case
Earlier this spring, it became known that the Center Party was handling another case related to Enoksen. In connection with that case, Center Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said this week that he still has confidence in Enoksen.
“I would take him into the government and have him in the government because I have high confidence in him,” Vedum said when asked if he would have given Enoksen the ministerial post if he knew about the case.
The other case concerns two incidents from 2000 and 2001, respectively, when Enoksen was the leader of the Center Party.
Enoksen was the leader of the Center Party from 1999 to 2003. He has been a parliamentary representative from 1993 to 2005. In addition, Enoksen was Minister of Local Government from 1999 to 2000, Minister of Petroleum and Energy from 2005 to 2007, and most recently Minister of Defense since last autumn.
Enoksen is the second minister to resign after the Støre government took office last autumn. Hadia Tajik resigned as Minister of Labor earlier this year.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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Not regarding this sad matter, there is a photo on an Internet forum of Jens Stoltenberg with his arm around a(n attractive) high-ranking Forsvars functionary. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. They are obviously just good friends giving each other mutual support in the midst of our terminally dangerous crisis.
I initially posted a snarky comment there, referring to OR, and then took it down. It was unjustifiably mean. But the more I thought about it, I finally decided to post there this important-in-the-circumstances comment instead:
The cosiness of this national security community too easily produces groupthink which can too easily lockstep us into the very war which we gravely risk at this very moment.
There are those elsewhere who would like to see a war – even nuclear – waged against Russia in sideshow theaters like Ukraine and the North.
Meanwhile, genuine civil defense/sivillforsvars is essentially nonexistent for the general population – by contrast.
Instead giving the Russians the fair peace and security treaty we *owe* them after our past broken security promises to them and then our Budapest peace agreement breaking 2014 Kiev coup
would be SO much easier
would have *prevented* this holocaust, as bad as it is, just so far.
*Some*one has to stand up and say STOP – MAKE PEACE.
Kåre Willoch would have. Old as he already was, he was the only Norwegian there that one day with enough backbone to stand up and call down NATO DptySecGen Alexander Vershbow’s complaints about Russia’s post-Kiev-coup countermoves, demanding “What did you *expect*?”
Lou Coatney, usma x1968, AUS (volunteer) 67-69 ConUS&USArEur
#groupthink #norge #forsvaret #ukrainewar #nuclearwar #civildefense #sivillforsvars #ww3 #peaceforukraine #peace #nobelpeaceprize
My sense is that my comment has been noticed. To the person’s credit, she didn’t delete it, but now only her connections are allowed to comment.
Meanwhile, Russia Today is claiming that during his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, an official of an EU country said he wanted to see evidence about the Bucha killings. My comment under another RT article about the EU being a tool of NATO (instead of vice versa?):
Both are in Brussels, and it is logical. I had always considered NATO to be the EU’s mailed fist. However, the EU person wanting proof Bucha wasn’t staged – a false flag – is very heartening.
Is the EU trying to be fair? There is still the vision of Russia (under V.V. Putin and/or his successors) someday rejoining the Western community of nations … of joining the EU and even NATO … and I still have my 2011 Norwegian Atlantic Council booklet, Russia in NATO.
***
And while we are utterly wasting ourselves on a war which never should have happened – the Russians’ security needs are justified and fair – the UN is … possibly in part because of the unexpected collapse of a major Antarctica ice shelf … putting out even more dire warnings about our destruction of the environment.
At least lemmings don’t wreck the environment.
***
There is a meme out which sums up the Ukraine war as it now is perfectly. A bear and a small, pugnacious porcupine are glaring at each other over a small table, the bear is covered in porcupine quills, and the caption is “Stuck.”