Morten Wetland

Morten Wetland (born 12 May 1951) is a Norwegian lobbyist, jurist, diplomat and politician for the Labour Party. He is a former State Secretary, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations in New York.

Career 1976–1998 Wetland graduated from the University of Oslo with the cand.jur. degree in 1976. He was hired in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the same year, but left to work as a deputy judge in Grimstad Municipality from 1978 to 1979. From 1983 to 1983 he worked as a secretary at the Norwegian embassy in West Germany.

He then returned to Norway to work as a civil servant. He worked in the Norwegian Office of the Prime Minister from 1985 to 1990, except for a period between 1989 and 1990 when he worked as director of the legal department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1991 he was promoted to deputy under-secretary of State in the Office of the Prime Minister. and quickly became famous in Norway.

In 1994 Wetland moved from the administrative to the partisan political stratum in the Office of the Prime Minister, as he was appointed State Secretary in the third cabinet Brundtland.

He worked briefly for the publishing house Gyldendal in 1997, before spending the next year as campaign leader for Gro Harlem Brundtland, who ran for the position as Director-General of the World Health Organization.

1998–2005 In 1998 Wetland was proclaimed Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, for his work as a civil servant. The same year he became the Norway's Ambassador to Germany, serving until 2003. although he became Norway's Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Wetland was publicly accused, by anonymous sources, of having a personal vendetta against Lindstrøm; however no sanctions were taken against this.

2005–2008 In the autumn of 2005, when the second cabinet Stoltenberg assumed office, Wetland returned to politics as State Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister. At the time of the appointment, it was noted that Wetland was a member of the so-called Kristiania Forum, an informal group consisting of perceived right-wing elite members of the Labour Party.

He left on 1 January 2008, having handed in his resignation in late 2007.

2008–2012 In late February 2008 he was appointed as Norway's new Permanent Representative to the United Nations. This was not uncontroversial. The foreign affairs administration had originally singled out another candidate, peace process veteran Mona Juul, who was the deputy leader of the Norwegian delegation to the United Nations at that time. Instead, Wetland was appointed. Both were given the green light by law experts in the Ministry of Justice. Nonetheless, Stoltenberg, whose wife was a friend of Juul, chose to back out of the process in order to act "cautious". He was not present when the Council of State discussed the case. Jonas Gahr Støre chose to participate in the Council of State meeting.

Personal life Wetland is married, and has two children.