President Obama wins surprise Nobel Peace Prize

Oct 9, 2009, 14:51 GMT

White House handout photo of US President Barack Obama President Barack Obama talking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, 8 June 2009. US President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, it was announced in Oslo, 09 October 2009. The Nobel Committee said he was awarded it for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples". EPA/PETE SOUZA

Oslo - The announcement of US President Barack Obama as winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for 'extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy' drew gasps of surprise and applause by reporters assembled in Oslo - and observers around the world.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee stunned observers with its choice since Obama has only served nine months of his presidency.

Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the committee, said it had considered what Obama had done during the year - and that the prize was not for what Obama might do in the future, for instance in Afghanistan.

The president had just been a few weeks at the White House before the February 1 deadline for peace prize nominations expired. Obama was sworn in January 20.

Jagland said that Obama had done most for peace 'in the past year,' citing the US president's efforts to promote nuclear disarmament.

This was also in line with the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who endowed the prize.

'We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future we are awarding Obama for what he has done the preceding year,' he said.

It is the third time a sitting US president has won the coveted award. In 1906 the prize was awarded to President Theodore Roosevelt while in 1919 it was won by President Woodrow Wilson.

Obama becomes the 90th winner of the award since 1901.

Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister and foreign minister, earlier this year took over as chair of the Nobel Committee. He also mentioned Obama's support for international organizations like the United Nations.

'If you look at the history of the Nobel Prize, we have tried to enhance what many personalities have tried to do,' Jagland said, citing the efforts in the 1970s by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and in the 1980s by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

The committee - appointed by the Norwegian parliament - is no stranger to controversy and may face criticism over its latest choice.

But Jagland told broadcaster CNN that the five-member committee's decision was 'unanimous'.

Critics have mentioned that it missed out on selecting the likes of Mahatama Gandhi and questioned its policy in recent years to award a wider peace concept, for instance the 2004 selection of Kenyan human rights activist and environmentalist Wangari Maathai.

Maathai was one of several former peace laureates including former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari (who won last year), and former South African president Nelson Mandela to welcome the choice of Obama.

The prize - worth 10 million kronor (1.4 million dollars) - is scheduled to be presented in Oslo on December 10.

There were a record 205 nominations for the 2009 peace prize, of which 33 organizations.

Speculation before the 2009 prize announcement had centred on Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, freed Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt as well as dissidents in China.

Among those who have the right to nominate candidates for the coveted award are parliamentarians, academics, former peace prize laureates as well as current and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The peace prize is awarded in Oslo. The other prizes - for medicine, physics, chemistry and literature - are handed over at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's 1896 death in San Remo, Italy.

The economic sciences prize - a prize not endowed by Nobel and awarded since 1968 - is scheduled to be announced Monday.