INTERVIEW-Anyone bringing Middle East peace would win Nobel
Source: Reuters
By John Acher and Alister Doyle OSLO, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Anyone who brings peace to the Middle East is guaranteed a Nobel Peace Prize, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Tuesday. But those who make the sacrifices and sign the peace accords around the world are more likely to be rewarded than the mediators of such deals, Geir Lundestad said. The 2006 prize winner will be announced on Friday in Oslo. The scope of the peace prize will continue to expand, after a ground-breaking environmental award in 2004, and journalists could be among new candidates in the future, Lundestad said. He declined to hint at who will win this year from a field of 191 nominees but was clear about the importance of Middle East peacemaking. "We have given many prizes to the Middle East -- We will definitely give another peace prize to those who are able to solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue," Lundestad told Reuters. "I can promise that one." The 1994 peace prize went to late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the 1993 Oslo accords, which have since collapsed. Lundestad said the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which bestows the prize created by the 1895 will of Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel, had rewarded many peace mediators, from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 to Jimmy Carter in 2002. Peace brokers could also be rewarded in the future. "But there have been many more parties to conflicts (rewarded), and that is the way it should be," said Lundestad, who, as secretary to the secretive five-member Nobel committee, is one of just six people who know the identity of the winner. "Mediators do an important job but the ones who really put their political and sometimes even their personal lives on the line ... are the parties," he said. "But that doesn't exclude the mediators," he added. One mediator, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, has been widely tipped to win for his work brokering a truce in August 2005 between Indonesia and separatist Aceh rebels. The Finn is the pick of Australian bookmakers Centrebet and some experts, ahead of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Free Aceh Movement who signed the peace deal. Lundestad declined to comment on any individual names in the running for the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.36 million) prize. EXPANDING SCOPE OF PEACE Nobel's will said the prize should go to whomever does the most or best work during the year for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies or for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. But the scope of the prize has grown over the decades, expanding into human rights and even to environmental protection with the 2004 prize to Kenya's Wangari Maathai for her work planting trees in Africa. Lundestad said the scope would grow further. "We have studied additional areas, whether they are possible or not, and we have concluded for instance that press and media work is indeed relevant," he said. "It makes a big difference whether the news is reported factually or with a nationalistic slant or propagandistic way. So we have concluded that there is a close enough relationship between media and peace to make such an award possible." Lundestad said in a speech in 2001 that "sooner rather than later" the committee would want to speak out about the lack of democratic rights in China. But he refused to be drawn on the chances of Rebiya Kadeer, a Muslim defender of the rights of China's Uighur ethnic group who some see as worthy of the prize.
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