Oslo: US President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts in strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation among people.
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the Norwegian Nobel committee said. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.”
Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the President.
The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”
Obama would formally receive the award on him on December 10. There were a record 205 nominations for this year's prize.
The laureate wins a gold medal, a diploma and 10m Swedish kronor ($1.4m).
It is for the third time that s sitting US President has peace prize. Apart from Obama the others are Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Former president Jimmy Carter has won the award in 2002, while former vice president Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the UN panel on climate change.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, October 09, 2009, 18:21