You're listening to the witness history podcast on the BBC World Service. It's 30 years

since the Oslo Accords were signed. This agreement in 1993 aimed to bring about peace between

the Israelis and Palestinians. This week we're bringing stories from Israeli and Palestinian

history and today we're starting with that 1993 peace agreement. In 2010, Louise

Hidalgo spoke to someone with a close-up view of the negotiations.

It's summer 1993 and in Washington, a weary spokesman for the US Secretary of State publicly

dispairs that the Israelis and Palestinians will ever reach any kind of peace.

You forget to the end of the year and there's been no progress, you really have to assess

at that point whether it's wise to continue to use the resources of the United States

and specifically the good offices of the Secretary to help the parties. We can't, as we say,

over and over again, we can't do for the parties what they must do themselves, which is to

address these issues, make hard choices and go about the work of trying to build a framework

for lasting peace in the region.

But unbeknown to the US government spokesman and to the rest of the world, 6,000 kilometers

away in a quiet European capital, the Palestinians and the Israelis are talking. Away from the

world's media, the talks have been going on secretly for eight months and an historic

agreement is about to be reached.

The breakthrough where we knew for a fact that it would be signed, I mean, just happened

day or two before then, because it was extremely intense negotiations, obviously, until the

bitter end of all the details.

Mona Joule works for the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Her husband, Terje Rudlasen, is

a sociologist and diplomat. Together, they helped make possible the talks that led to what

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