With the winner of the Nobel peace prize set to be announced this Friday, Norwegian politicians are worried that Donald Trump could react badly if he doesn’t receive the prestigious award.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Thursday that this year’s laureate had been chosen earlier in the week, just days before the US president brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Several Nobel experts believe the head of state has little chance of winning, but officials in the Nordic country fear that such a setback could damage diplomatic relations between Washington and Oslo.
Kirsti Bergstø, leader of Norway’s Socialist Left Party and its foreign policy spokesperson, urged the country to be ready for any scenario.
“Donald Trump is taking the US in an extreme direction, attacking freedom of speech, having masked secret police kidnapping people in broad daylight and cracking down on institutions and the courts. When the president is this volatile and authoritarian, of course we have to be prepared for anything,” Bergstø said.
“The Nobel Committee is an independent body, and the Norwegian government has no involvement in determining the prizes. But I’m not sure Trump knows that. We have to be prepared for anything from him,” she added in comments to The Guardian.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that he deserves the award for his peace efforts since returning to the White House, seeking to follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama, who won the prize in 2009 during his first presidential term.
