US President Barack Obama's Nobel peace prize ‘mistake’: Nobel committee ex-secretary
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama in 2009 was a “mistake” and it failed to achieve the intended goals of promoting global peace, according to the former secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee which awards the peace prize.
"Even many of Obama's supporters thought the prize was a mistake," Geir Lundestad writes in a book released on Thursday.
Lundestad explains that it became impossible for the US president to live up to the high expectations placed upon him by the committee.
"In that sense the committee didn't achieve what it had hoped for,” Lundestad wrote in excerpts of the book read by The Associated Press.
Lundestad was director of the secretive Norwegian Nobel Institute from 1990-2015. He attended committee meetings but had no vote.
Lundestad, currently a professor of international history at the University of Oslo, said he had strong doubts before the prize was awarded to Obama.
The award, which came just nine months after Obama became president, was widely criticized in the United States and rest of the world. Political commentators described the peace prize as premature because Obama had not accomplished much at the time.
Obama may be one of the most controversial recent winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, but he is not the first. The prize has, for most of its history, been the subject of controversies due to its political nature.
Some scholars have suggested that to award a peace prize on the basis of unquantifiable contemporary opinion is unjust and flawed, especially as many of the committee members are not impartial observers.
US Election Day: First votes cast in New Hampshire
US intensifies security measures amid anticipated post-election unrest
Russia rejects 'baseless' US claims of producing fake vote videos
48-year-old Palestinian man serving 48 life terms completes 22 years in Israeli jails
From MKO to Tondar, how Germany became safe haven for anti-Iran terror groups
Hamas open to any proposal aiming to end Gaza war: Hamdan
Role of private sector in Iran’s thriving space industry
Four Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on West Bank
Iran warns of ‘calculated, precise’ response to Israeli aggression
After year-long genocide, Israeli military hires private firms to flatten buildings in Gaza
Malaysia working on resolution to expel Israel from United Nations
PressTV NEWSLETTER
now
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
