OSLO // A wartime president honoured for peace, Barack Obama today praised past Nobel winners for giving a "voice to the voiceless." Mr Obama's first stop in this Nordic capital where he formally becomes a Nobel laureate himself was the Norwegian Nobel Institute, where the Nobel committee meets to decide who gets the prestigious prize. The president will receive his Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma at a ceremony later.
After signing the guest book at the Institute with a lengthy passage, Mr Obama told reporters he had penned thanks to the committee members while noting the pictures of former winners filling the wall, singling out Martin Luther King Jr, Mr Obama said the prize, given to the civil rights leader in 1964, increased King's stature in the world and had a "galvanising effect" for his cause at home.
First lady Michelle Obama teased her husband gently. "You writing a book there?" she said as he wrote. Asked by Nobel permanent secretary, Geir Lundestad, to add her own inscription, Mrs Obama quipped that "mine won't be as long." The president bantered back: "She will resist writing something sarcastic." The president is joining the list of winners under such odd circumstances - honoured for working to reshape the way the US deals with the world just days after ordering 30,000 more American troops to the Afghanistan war - that he will make a point of it.
Mr Obama's Nobel speech - a tradition that goes to the winner and is billed as a lecture for the world - will explore his thinking about war, security and the pursuit of peace. He is likely to spell out the role of American leadership and the responsibilities of all nations. There will be plenty of ceremony in Mr Obama's honour, too. In the evening, Mr Obama is expected to wave to a torchlight procession from his hotel balcony and stroll with Norwegian royalty to a dinner banquet. He will offer comments a second time there and cap his brisk jaunt to Europe covering not even two days.
The president and his wife arrived to a chilly Oslo morning after an overnight flight from Washington. He and the first lady came off Air Force One holding hands and smiling, greeted by a small clutch of dignitaries. Mr Obama was due back in Washington by midday Friday. He also was to meet with Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg while in Oslo. The Nobel committee announced Mr Obama had won the peace prize when he wasn't even nine months on the job, recognising his aspirations much more than his achievements. The panel cited his call for a world free of nuclear weapons, for a more engaged US role in combating global warming, for his support of the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy and for broadly capturing the attention of the world and giving its people "hope."
It was such a surprise, and derided so loudly by some critics as premature, that the Nobel committee took the unusual step of defending itself. Mr Obama reacted with humility, saying he was undeserving. Mr Obama's quick trip reflects a White House that sees little value in trumpeting an honour for peace just nine days after Mr Obama announced he was sending more troops off to war. Asked if Mr Obama was excited about the award, national security aide and speech writer Ben Rhodes responded, "I think he feels as if it places a responsibility upon him."
"It's the company that you keep as a Nobel laureate that I think makes the deepest impression upon him," said Mr Rhodes, who was helping craft the president's speech. "That kind of adds an extra obligation to essentially extend the legacy." Mr Obama was considering lots of ideas for the speech and had been expected to sort them into a final draft aboard Air Force One. The peace-award-in-wartime irony hasn't gone unnoticed here. Peace activists plan a 5,000-person anti-war protest. Protesters have plastered posters around Oslo featuring the image of Obama from his iconic campaign poster, altered with scepticism to say, "Change?"
Demonstrators plan to gather in sight of Mr Obama's hotel room balcony, and chant slogans playing on Mr Obama's own slogans, foremost among them: "Change: Stop the War in Afghanistan." A local convenience store chain, Narvesen, promoted its coffee with an "Obama in Oslo" sale, listing prices in dollars aimed at members of Mr Obama's entourage. The list of Nobel peace laureates over the last 100 years includes transformative figures and giants on the world stage. They include heroes of the president, such as Nelson Mandela and others he has long admired, like George Marshall, who launched a postwar recovery plan for Europe.
The Nobel honour comes with a $1.4 million (Dh5.1m) prize. The White House says Mr Obama will give that to charities but has not yet decided which ones. * AP
