Congrats! Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize [Updated]

OSLO (NY Times) – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

Speculation as likely winner just minutes before the prize was announced. (AP)

The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama’s name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

“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 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.”

Nobel Peace Center – From King to Obama

Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said their choice could be seen as an early vote of confidence in Obama intended to build global support for his policies. They lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change.

Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who joined the committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as “support and a commitment for Obama.”

“And I hope it will be an inspiration for all those that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament,” she told The Associated Press in a rare interview. Members of the Nobel peace committee usually speak only through its chairman.

The peace prize was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts but Obama’s efforts are at far earlier stages than past winners’. The Nobel committee acknowledged that they may not bear fruit at all.

“He got the prize because he has been able to change the international climate,” Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. “Some people say, and I understand it, isn’t it premature? Too early? Well, I’d say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now. It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us.”

After the prize was announced, Jagland compared the decision to give it to Obama to the prize was given to German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1971 for his “Ostpolitik” policy of trying to find common ground with Eastern Europe, which was under Communist sway.

He said the same thing was true when then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev got the prize in 1990 after he had launched perestroika and glasnost, and allowed Eastern Europe to emerge from Kremlin control.

The selection to some extent reflects a trans-Atlantic divergence on Obama. In Europe and much of the world he is lionized for bringing the United States closer to mainstream global thinking on issues like climate change and multilateralism.

October 9, 2009 – The Nelson Mandela Foundation, on behalf of its Founder Nelson Mandela, welcomes the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama.

We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty.

Updated 7:49 a.m.
Environmentalists are greeting the news with hopes that President Obama will go straight from Oslo to Copenhagen for climate talks in December, now that it looks like he will be in that part of the world — just as Gore did in 2007. Climate talks start Dec. 7, and the Nobel will be awarded Dec. 10.

“We congratulate President Obama on winning the Nobel Peace prize,” said Keya Chatterjee, director of climate change for WWF-US in a statement. “Now that we know President Obama will be in Scandinavia in December, expectations are even higher that he will attend the Copenhagen climate summit in person to usher in a fair, ambitious and binding climate agreement.”

MOSCOW, October 9 (RIA Novosti) – Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev congratulated President Barack Obama on his Nobel Peace Prize award on Friday, and welcomed the U.S. leader’s positive impact on global affairs.

“I congratulate you on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I am convinced that it is the right decision, which significantly reinforces our family of Nobel laureates,” Gorbachev said in a letter to Obama published on the Gorbachev Foundation website.

“Your efforts have helped to bring about a significant change in the international climate. I feel close affinity to your vision of the global world and of relations among nations. Implementing it will require strong will, statesmanship and mastery of communication. It will also require support from Americans and from men and women of good will throughout the world.”

Russian senator calls Obama’s Nobel prize ‘reaction to Bush era’