The Secretary General made the following statement on Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize:
The Secretary-General wholeheartedly congratulates U.S. President Barack Obama on winning the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.
We are entering an era of renewed multilateralism, a new era where the challenges facing humankind demand global common cause and uncommon global effort. President Obama embodies the new spirit of dialogue and engagement on the world’s biggest problems: climate change, nuclear disarmament and a wide range of peace and security challenges. His commitment to work through the United Nations gives the world’s people fresh hope and fresh prospects.
We at the United Nations applaud him and the Nobel committee for its choice. The Secretary-General looks forward to deepening the U.S.-UN partnership as a key building block to a better and safer world for all.
In awarding Obama the Prize, the Nobel Committee cited his re-engagement with the UN and his work on nuclear weapons. His chairing of the Security Council meeting on nuclear proliferation basically restarted worlwide disarmament talks.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play [emphasis mine…well, and I guess the Committee’s also]. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”