Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Storr met Tuesday with the head of Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas' staff, Rafik al-Husseini, and PA Jerusalem Affairs minister Ahmed al-Rawidi, at the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. Observers said it was the first time a foreign dignitary had met a PA government official in Jerusalem since the closure of the Orient House in 2001.
Al-Rawidi said that the fact that the meeting took place in Jerusalem was "important." Husseini said that "a Palestinian state without Jerusalem has no meaning."