Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre recently appointed his former chief of staff Torgeir Larsen to the top of the Foreign Ministry. Soon he will appoint one of his closest associates, Kjersti Andersen, head of foreign affairs in his own office.

It has long been in the cards that Kjersti Andersen (54) will become the new head of expedition at the Prime Minister’s office for the International Department, even though the applicant list has a couple of other strong names, writes Dagens Næringsliv.

Støre has now been able to place two of his closest associates in the most important positions for the management of Norwegian foreign policy.

Støre’s heyday as a politician was as foreign minister until 2012, where he was regularly called Super-Jonas and scored high in press popularity polls.

Kjersti Andersen is considered someone who Støre trusts the most. But since the change of government, she has had to find herself in a far less prominent role. She found herself in the administration department, because she is even closer to Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt.

They are so close that she was considered incompetent. But the new job at the Prime Minister’s office solves that problem.

Torgeir Larsen has been brought back a number of times to Støre’s inner circle. Although it is Anniken Huitfeldt who is Larsen’s superior, in practice he will be one of Støre’s closest, since the foreign affairs field is so central to the prime minister.

In addition to Larsen and Andersen, Støre has also brought in two more from his heyday as foreign minister. Henrik Thune came in as state secretary with responsibility for foreign affairs at SMK and Øyvind Stokke who has been a speech writer for the prime minister in a temporary capacity for the past year.