When Donald Trump shook North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s hand in Singapore, signing the historic document in which Pyongyang committed itself to nuclear disarmament, this marked a historic turning point, which, according to MPs Christian Tybring-Gjedde and Per-Willy Amundsen qualified Donald Trump for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
“What’s happening now is historical. A process is underway to ensure world peace in the future. It’s a fragile process, but we must of course do what we can to help this process to bring good results. I think that we can do this by sending a clear signal and awarding the peace prize to Trump,” Amundsen told national broadcaster NRK.
While many have slammed the historic agreement as non-binding or too unspecific, the two Progress Party MPs argued the nomination wasn’t at all premature.
“Although it’s not a binding agreement, it’s still an initiative that opens up for visits both ways, it's an initiative to get the disarmament process started and lastly to put a damper on the military exercises the US has with South Korea”, Tybring-Gjedde said, calling the nomination a “nudge” to make Donald Trump finish what he has started.
Amundsen argued the summit and the agreement between Trump and Kim totally fit into Alfred Nobel’s testament.
“This goes straight into the core of Nobel’s testament. It’s about disarmament, bonding and creating peace. These are the results that count,” Amundsen said.
A group of Republicans contacted the Nobel Committee in May this year, one month before the much-anticipated summit took place. They argued that President Trump had already earned this distinction due to his efforts to remove nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. According to the Progress Party MPs, Trump’s actual meeting with Kim Jong-un further substantiates this claim.
“In this situation, Trump is obviously a man of peace. He is trying to get a result where others have failed, and if he makes it, he deserves fame,” Tybring-Gjedde stressed.
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While South Korean President Moon Jae-in, former US president Jimmy Carter and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have all suggested Trump could deserve the Nobel, many specialists, including historian Asle Sveen and Henrik Urdal, the head of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (Prio), have argued it is a bit premature. Urdal cited the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize that went to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung for his reconciliation efforts, which turned out to be “little more than a public relations campaign.”
In 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize award to newly-elected US President Barack Obama was widely criticized as premature.
