During those gruelling talks, Nylander, 49, earned a reputation from the government and rebels alike as an honest broker, careful not to impose his will but who could act decisively when called upon. “Dag is the ideal interlocutor,” said Sergio Jaramillo, who as Colombia’s peace commissioner was one of the architects of the peace deal ending a half-century of guerrilla fighting. In the case of Venezuela, Nylander and diplomats from Norway’s embassy in Bogota, Colombia, began travelling to Caracas and meeting with key figures almost as soon as Colombia’s peace deal was inked at the end of 2016. “Almost by definition, a negotiated solution needs to have a win-win aspect,” said Bernard Aronson, who was the Obama administration’s special envoy to the Colombia peace talks. Following the Colombian peace talks, Nylander spent more than a year shuttling between New York and Caracas as U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ special representative on a long-running border controversy between Venezuela and its neighbour Guyana.

Source: National Post May 31, 2019 16:07 UTC