US President, Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize following his efforts to broker peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Norwegian far-Right politician and chairman to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Christian Tybring-Gjedde made the nomination following a “historic peace agreement”.
“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Mr Tybring-Gjedde, a four-term member of parliament said.
A White House official recently announced President Trump will hold a signing ceremony on 15 September for a groundbreaking Middle East agreement normalising relations between Israel and the UAE.
As part of the deal, announced at the White House on 13 August following what officials said were 18 months of talks, the Gulf state agreed to normal relations with Israel, while Israel agreed to continue with plans to suspend its annexation of the West Bank.
In 2020, there were 318 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Submissions must be made online and all nominees are discussed before a shortlist of the most worthy and interesting is drawn up.
Mr Tybring-Gjedde’s letter to the Nobel Committee praised the US president’s role in improving relations between the Middle Eastern nations.
He wrote: “As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity.”
He also lauded the president for withdrawing a large number of forces from the Middle East.
“Indeed, Trump has broken a 39-year-old streak of American Presidents either starting a war or bringing the United States into an international armed conflict. The last president to avoid doing so was Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter.”
This is not the first time Mr Trump has been nominated for the prize. In 2018, Mr Tybring-Gjedde submitted his name following his Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The US president did not win.
President Trump later implied that he deserved the prize, after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the award in 2019. In remarks made in January 2020, the US president claimed he, not Ahmed, was key in brokering peace in the African nation, and did not formally congratulate Ahmed.
Mr Tybring-Gjedde said that he was “not a big Trump supporter”, but other leaders should follow his lead in reserving their judgment.
“The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts – not on the way he behaves sometimes,” he said.
“The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”
Three other US presidents have won the peace prize, including Barack Obama, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Theodore Roosevelt.
There was criticism in 2009 when President Barack Obama won the prize just nine months into his first term.
According to reports, Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe has also nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
