Crown Prince Haakon and Oil and Energy Minister Thorild Widvey made up Norway's official delegation to Saudi Arabia, to offer condolences on the death of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd on Monday.
The king was buried quickly, within a day of his death in accordance with local tradition. But on Wednesday, national leaders from around the world were expected to stream into Saudi Arabia to attend an official ceremony and offer condolences personally to King Fahd's successor, the former Crown Prince Abdullah.
Norway's official participation was aborted, however, when the country's Foreign Ministry "got the message that we couldn't offer condolences after 3:30 in the afternoon," said ministry spokeswoman Anne Lene Dale Sandsten.
The plane carrying Crown Prince Haakon and Widvey would have landed too late, Sandsten said, so they decided there was no point in continuing the trip.
Sandsten wouldn't speculate as to why the Saudis suddenly put restrictions on the condolence mission, but said several other countries were given the same message as Norway.
Middle East experts are baffled by the incident. "This sounds very strange," Kari Vogt, professor and Islamic expert at the University of Oslo, told newspaper Aftenposten.. She can't think of any religious reason, or diplomatic etiquette, for the message.
The crown prince and the oil minister weren't traveling unannounced, she noted, adding that it's not normal to set a time limit on condolence visits to Arab countries.
