US President Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize over the deal his administration brokered between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The nomination was submitted by Norwegian politician Christian Tybring-Gjedde, who leads the country’s right-leaning Progress Party.
“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Mr Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News, explaining his decision to put Mr Trump’s name forward.
He also mentioned the President’s attempts to reach a denuclearisation deal with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and praised his decision to withdraw a large number of US troops from the Middle East.
“I’m not a big Trump supporter,” Mr Tybring-Gjedde stressed.
“The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts, not the way he behaves sometimes. The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump.
“For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”
Mr Obama won the Peace Prize in 2009, just months after taking office, for what the Nobel Committee described as his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.
That decision was widely mocked. Mr Obama himself admitted he was “surprised”, and he considered not receiving the prize in person.
Read the article by Sam Clench in The Daily Telegraph and news.com.au.