OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Norwegian ambassador who was involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts in the 1990s and most recently served in Jordan has resigned as she faces scrutiny over her contacts with Jeffrey Epstein, the country's Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry announced Mona Juul's resignation on Sunday evening, days after she was suspended as Norway's ambassador to Jordan. That followed reports that Epstein left the children of Juul and her husband, Terje Rød-Larsen, $10 million in a will drawn up shortly before his death by suicide in a New York prison in 2019.
Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Juul's decision was “correct and necessary.” Her contact with the convicted sex offender showed a “serious lapse in judgment,” he said, adding that “the case makes it difficult to restore the trust that the role requires.”
A ministry investigation into Juul's knowledge of and contact with Epstein will continue, and Juul will continue discussions with the ministry “so that the matter can be clarified,” Eide said.
The ministry said it also launched a review of its funding of and contact with the International Peace Institute, a New York-based think tank, during the period when it was headed by Rød-Larsen. Eide said Rød-Larsen also had shown poor judgment regarding Epstein.
Revelations from the Epstein files have reverberated across several countries — most prominently the U.K., where the former Prince Andrew has long been under pressure. Prime Minister Keir Starmer now faces calls to resign as he contends with fallout from the relationship between Epstein and former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson. Starmer appointed Mandelson in 2024 despite knowing he had ties to Epstein.
Rød-Larsen and Juul were among those involved in facilitating the landmark Oslo Accords aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the 1990s.
Norway's National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, or Økokrim, said Monday that it decided last week to open an investigation of Juul and Rød-Larsen.
It said in a statement that Juul is suspected of gross corruption based on her position at the Foreign Ministry, and Rød-Larsen of aiding and abetting gross corruption. Investigators will look among other things into whether Juul received benefits in connection with her position. On Monday, they searched an apartment in Oslo's Frogner district and the home of a witness.
Juul acknowledged in a statement to Norwegian news agency NTB last week that it had been “imprecise” to describe her contact with Epstein as minimal, but said that the contact originated in her husband's relationship with Epstein and she had no independent social or professional relationship with him.
She wrote that her contact with Epstein had been sporadic and private, not part of her official duties, but acknowledged that she should have been much more careful.
The latest batch of Epstein files has cast an unflattering spotlight on other prominent figures in Norway. Crown Princess Mette-Marit on Friday issued an apology “to all of you whom I have disappointed" after documents offered more details of her relationship with Epstein.
Økokrim already opened a corruption investigation into former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland — who also once headed the committee that hands out the Nobel Peace Prize — over his ties with Epstein. His lawyer said Jagland would cooperate.
FILE - Norway's Ambassador to the United Nations Mona Juul address a U.N. Security Council meeting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Friday Feb. 25, 2022 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan and Afghanistan exchanged cross-border attacks overnight in a dramatic escalation of tensions that led Pakistan’s defense minister to say on Friday that the two countries are in a state of “open war.”
Afghanistan launched an attack on Pakistan late Thursday, saying it was in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday. Pakistan then carried out airstrikes in Kabul and two other Afghan provinces early Friday, saying it targeted military installations.
Tensions have been high for months. Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting in October, but several rounds of peace talks in Turkey in November failed to produce a lasting agreement. The two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
Qatar once again appears to be mediating. Its minister of state, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi, spoke Friday with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort to de-escalate tensions, Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on X.
Afghanistan's attacks against Pakistani military targets was meant as "a message that our hands can reach their throats and that we will respond to every evil act of Pakistan,” Afghan government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said. “Pakistan has never sought to resolve problems through dialogue,” Mujahid said.
After the Afghan strikes, Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif posted on X: “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
Asif said Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of NATO forces in 2021 and expected the Taliban, which seized power in the country, to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability.
Instead, he said the Taliban had turned Afghanistan “into a colony of India” — a reference to recently improving ties between India and Afghanistan, including offers of enhanced bilateral trade. Pakistan and neighboring India, both nuclear armed powers, have periodically engaged in wars, clashes and skirmishes since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Asif also accused Afghanistan of “exporting terrorism,” an allegation Pakistan frequently levies at its neighbor as militant violence in the country surges. Specifically, Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of supporting the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, as well as outlawed Baloch separatist groups.
Pakistan accuses the TTP, which is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban, of operating from inside Afghanistan. Both the group and Kabul deny that charge.
“Pakistan’s internal conflict is a purely domestic issue and is not a new one,” Mujahid said Friday, noting the TTP had been active for nearly two decades.
Pakistan has also frequently accused neighboring India of backing the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, allegations New Delhi denies.
Afghanistan said its attack Thursday was in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday.
The governments have issued sharply differing casualty claims.
Pakistan's army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said Pakistani air and ground operations killed at least 274 members of Afghan forces and affiliated militants and wounded more than 400, while 12 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 27 others were wounded. One Pakistani soldier was missing in action.
Mujahid rejected the claims of the high number of Afghan casualties as “false.” He said 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed with the bodies of 23 of them taken to Afghanistan. He also said “many” Pakistani soldiers were captured. Thirteen Afghan soldiers had been killed, he said, and another 22 wounded, while 13 civilians were also wounded. A religious school in Paktika province was bombed on Friday morning, he added, saying information on potential casualties there was not yet available.
The claims of either side could not be independently verified.
Pakistan’s air force carried out airstrikes Friday night targeting military installations in Afghanistan’s Laghman province, two senior Pakistani security officials said. They said an arms depot and two key military installations were destroyed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record.
Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan’s anti-drone systems shot down several small drones over the northwestern cities of Abbottabad, Swabi, and Nowshera Friday. He said they appeared to be part of a failed attack by the Pakistani Taliban, and there were no casualties. Tarar claimed the drone attacks “once again exposed direct linkages between the Afghan Taliban regime and terrorism in Pakistan.”
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held separate phone calls with his Pakistani, Afghan, Qatari and Saudi counterparts on Friday to discuss the conflict, a Turkish official said, without providing details on the talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
In October, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had facilitated talks between the sides.
On Friday, Mujahid said Afghanistan had “always emphasized a peaceful solution, and we still want to resolve the problem through dialogue.”
In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged both sides to try to resolve their differences through diplomacy, and to protect civilians.
Russia called for an immediate halt to the fighting and for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, Russian diplomat Zamir Kabulov told news agency RIA Novosti. Kabulov, who is President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said that Moscow would consider mediating between the two countries if asked, according to RIA Novosti.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged Pakistan and Afghanistan to resolve their differences through dialogue during the holy month of Ramadan. He also said that Tehran was ready to assist in facilitating dialogue.
Pakistani authorities said that dozens of Afghan refugees in the Torkham border area had been relocated to safer places.
Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in October 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the same time.
Since then, millions have crossed the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and had built lives and created businesses there.
In 2025, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, the U.N. refugee agency has said, with nearly 80,000 having returned so far this year.
Abdul Qahar Afghan reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, Eduardo Castillo in Beijing, Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, also contributed to this story.
People read morning newspapers covering headline story about overnight cross border fighting between Pakistan and Afghan forces, at a stall in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)
Smoke rises after an explosion at a border post on the Afghan side of the Ghulam Khan crossing with Pakistan in Khost province, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Saifullah Zahir)
Taliban fighters look up while manning an armed pickup truck at the Afghan side of the Ghulam Khan crossing with Pakistan in Khost province, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Saifullah Zahir)
A man, who was injured in the overnight cross border fighting between Pakistan and Afghan forces, receives treatment at a hospital in Khar, in Bajaur, a district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering with Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Anwarullah Khan)
A villager looks at damaged solar plates and a portion following overnight cross border fighting between Pakistan and Afghan forces, at a village in Bajaur, a district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering with Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo)
Afghan Taliban soldiers gather on the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Wahidullah Kakar)
Afghan Taliban soldiers walk along the main road on the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Wahidullah Kakar)
Afghan Taliban soldiers look toward the Pakistani side, with one peering through the sight of his rifle, on the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Wahidullah Kakar)
An Afghan Taliban soldier gives instructions to drivers on the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Wahidullah Kakar)
Afghan Taliban soldiers stand on the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Wahidullah Kakar)
