OSLO, Jan. 13— Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst of Norway, who helped guide the secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization last year in Norway, died today in Oslo. He was 56.
Mr. Holst had entered the hospital in November for treatment of exhaustion. He suffered a stroke in December that impaired his speech and the Norwegian national radio reported that he had a second stroke overnight.
He had been Norway's Foreign Minister for less than 10 months.
Israeli and P.L.O. leaders mourned Mr. Holst's death and praised his contribution to the agreement on limited Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The accord was signed in Washington on Sept. 13, but it has not yet been carried out because of subsequent disputes over control of borders and the security of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories.
"The moment he entered the peace process, it was in the center of his life until his last breath," Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister, said today of Mr. Holst's role in helping to bring the two sides to an agreement. "The entire nation of Israel bows its head to the memory of this man."
Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. leader, called Mr. Holst "a great peacemaker who engraved the name of Norway in the book of world peace." Mr. Arafat promised to name a street and square in Jericho after Mr. Holst, the P.L.O. news agency said. An International Reputation
Norway's Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, canceled a trip to Finland today after learning of Mr. Holst's death. "Norway has lost a Foreign Minister who not only was highly respected in our homeland but who also had a strong international position and reputation," she said.
Many Norwegians were surprised when Mr. Holst, a former Defense Minister, was named Foreign Minister in April 1993. He was not known for his political skills, and some expressed doubts that he would measure up to his predecessor, Thorvald Stoltenberg, who had resigned to become the United Nations mediator for the Balkans.
But his success with the Israeli-P.L.O. negotiations won him wide respect. The Labor Party newspaper, Arbeiderbladet, said in a commentary in November: "We asked last summer if Stoltenberg's shoes might be too big for Holst. The question now is whether the shoes of Thorvald might be too small."
Mr. Holst and a tightly knit negotiating team that included his wife, Marianne Heiberg, a Middle East researcher, guided the secret talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, which began in January 1993 and continued through August.
The negotiators met in remote farmhouses in Norway, at hotels, and in Mr. Holst's home in Oslo, where the Foreign Minister's 4-year-old son, Edvard, helped break the ice by playing with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
Mr. Holst said the key to the success of the talks was establishing a relaxed, friendly tone, a challenge for a man who acknowledged being shy.
"We tried to design a format which would bring the conflict down to human scale and create a human atmosphere," he said in a speech last September at Columbia University, which he attended as an undergraduate.
Despite his success as an international negotiator, Mr. Holst was known at home for political gaffes. In a debate on refugee policy, he once annoyed many Norwegians by declaring, "Norwegians are not very hospitable."
Mr. Holst studied political science at Columbia and at the University of Oslo, where he earned his degree in 1965. He had won a research fellowship to Harvard University in 1961 and in 1970 was a visiting professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
He is survived by his wife and their son. He also had four children by an earlier marriage, but further details were not immediately available.
Photo: Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst of Norway with the P.L.O. leader, Yasir Arafat, at a news conference during Middle East talks in Oslo in November. Mr. Holst was treated for exhaustion after those talks. (Associated Press)
