Supporters cite the US president’s accomplishments in pacifying the Korean Peninsula crisis.
On Friday, US President Donald Trump claimed that Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe had given him a five-page letter addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee nominating him for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
Abe has declined to comment publicly on whether this is true, yet Trump has at least two other supporters–Norwegian lawmakers–who cite his work resolving last year’s Korean Peninsula crisis.
“We have nominated him of course for the positive developments on the Korean Peninsula,” Per-Willy Amundsen, who was Justice Minister in Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s cabinet in 2016-2018, told Reuters. “It has been a very difficult situation and the tensions have since lowered and a lot of it is due to Trump’s unconventional diplomatic style.”
The two Norwegian lawmakers, members of the rightist Progress Party, said they submitted a nomination letter to the Nobel Committee in June, immediately after a summit Trump held in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un aimed at easing tensions and tackling Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
A wide range of people can nominate individuals for the Nobel Peace Prize, including members of parliaments and governments, heads of state, university professors of history, social sciences or law and past Nobel Peace Prize laureates, among others.
The deadline for nominations for the 2019 prize, whose winner will be revealed Oct. 11., was Jan. 31.
The five-strong Norwegian Nobel Committee, which selects the winners, does not comment on nominations, maintaining confidential the names of nominators and unsuccessful nominees.
All we do know, via a press release, is that 304 candidates have been nominated for this year’s prize, of which 219 are individuals and 85 are organizations.
Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad.
