The Nobel Peace Prize committee on Friday said that the US president is in a great delusion if he believes he can sway or coerce the rigid independence of the Norwegian committee.
Since his return to the White House in January this year, Trump immediately said he wants the prestigious award, which his Democratic rival Barack Obama had won in 2009. The tech billionaire has taken every opportunity to say he "deserves it" he said he has ended six wars and wishes to end the Gaza and Ukraine wars, though his efforts have failed.
The secretary of the committee, Kristian Berg Harpviken, said, "Of course, we do notice that there is a lot of media attention towards particular candidates.” Yet, the hype doesn’t really impact the decision-making process in the committee as it considers each nominee on his or her own merits," he said.This year’s Nobel laureates will be announced on October 10.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump backed up his claim that he deserves the prize by pointing out that several leaders, from Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev, have either nominated him or backed his nomination.
Yet those nominations and calls would not be considered as nominations for this year, as they had to be submitted by the end of January, just ten days after he took office. "To be nominated is not necessarily a great achievement. The great achievement is to become a laureate," Berg Harpviken said, adding, "You know, the list of individuals who can nominate is quite long."
Also Read: Cong mocks PM Modi, recalls Trump’s 35 ceasefire claims
There are more than 338 entries in the list, which has been kept secret for 50 years. It's important to mention that the Nobel Prize Committee is nominated by the Norwegian parliament; however, the committee insists that its decisions are taken independently without pressure, coercion or influence from political circles.
"The Nobel Committee acts entirely independently and cannot allow itself to take those considerations into account when it discusses individual candidates," Berg Harpviken said. Norway is a firm believer in the multilateralism that prize creator Alfred Nobel defended in his lifetime but which has been upended by Trump's "America First" policy.
Also Read: Trump's envoy pick urges India to buy US oil, cites middle class
Follow us
