Trump envies Nobel Peace Prize Award to Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed

Kings UBA

5 years ago

President of the United States, Donald Trump has complained about the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize which was awarded the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed in 2019, saying he was overlooked after his efforts at averting war in the horn of Africa.

But Ahmed has asked Trump to channel his compliant to Oslo and not Ethiopia, noting that he was not aware of the criteria that gave him the global peace prize in 2019. The Nobel Peace Prize committee noted that Ahmed won the 2019 edition following his effort at bringing peace back to Ethiopia and Eritrea after 20 years of conflict.

For two decades, the long border was closed, dividing families and making trade impossible.

Mr Trump said last week that he had “saved a country” from a big war, a possible reference to his work on another dispute involving Ethiopia.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a bitter border war from 1998-2000, which killed tens of thousands of people.

Although a ceasefire was signed in 2000, the neighbours technically remained at war until July 2018, when Mr Abiy and Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki signed a peace deal.

Abiy Ahmed told reporters during a press briefing in South Africa that he was “not working for the prize” but for “peace in the region”.

“I don’t have any clue about the criteria, how the Nobel committee selects an individual for the prize,” he said.

“If President Trump complained it must go to Oslo not to Ethiopia,” he added.

Trump had said: “I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said: ‘What, did I have something to do with it?’ Yeah, but you know, that’s the way it is,” he said.