Obama Nobel Prize
Out of context: Reply #132
- Started
- Last post
- 188 Responses
- ukit0
Agot Valle, a Norwegian politician and member of the five-person Nobel committee that chose this year’s winner, said the choice of President Barack Obama was primarily related his stance on nuclear disarmament.
“There is a criticism about the war in Afghanistan, and I understand that,” said Valle in a telephone interview. “But this was primarily an award on his work on and commitment to nuclear disarmament – and his dialogue. Of course there will be criticism, because he hasn’t achieved his goals yet. It will take time, but this is a support.”
Valle said the committee last met on Oct. 5, and that the decision to choose Obama was unanimous, especially after Sept. 24, when Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to chair a U.N. Security Council summit-level meeting. At that meeting, the Security Council passed a resolution calling for a strengthened Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ahead of negotiations on the issue with Iran in Geneva.
“That strengthened his name, so to say,” Valle said. “It’s a challenge to him, of course, to continue going on in this way.”
She said she hoped the award would help Obama get the U.S. to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and aid him in progressing on climate change in Copenhagen. She added that she supported Obama’s recent decision to drop U.S. plans for a missile-defense shield in Central Europe. “He is giving hope to people who believe in dialogue instead of threats of using military tools,” she said.
Earlier, at the Nobel press conference, committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland defended the choice of Obama.
“If you look at the history of the Nobel Peace prize, we have, on many occasions, tried to enhance what many personalities are trying to do,” he said. “For instance, when Willy Brandt got the prize back in the 1970s. He launched Ostpolitik in Europe, which was so important to what happened in Europe many years later. For instance, giving the prize to Mikhail Gorbachev, who changed the world completely. And now to President Obama, who is contributing to improve the international climate.”