OSLO, Norway (AP) — The Latest on the Nobel Peace Prize (all times local):
11:50 a.m.
The director of the anti-nuclear campaign that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize says that “it sends a message to all nuclear-armed states and all states that continue to rely on nuclear weapons for security that it is unacceptable behavior.”
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told reporters that “we can’t threaten to indiscriminately slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians in the name of security. That’s not how you build security.”
Fihn said that the group has received a phone call minutes before the official announcement was made that ICAN had won the prize. But she thought it was “a prank” and she didn’t believe it until heard the name of the group during the Peace Prize announcement in Oslo.
___
11 a.m.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored the Geneva-based group “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”
The statement, read by committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen, said that “through its inspiring and innovative support for the U.N. negotiations on a treaty banning nuclear weapons, ICAN has played a major part in bringing about what in our day and age is equivalent to an international peace congress.”
Asked by journalists whether the prize was essentially symbolic, given that no international measures against nuclear weapons have been reached, Reiss-Andersen said that “what will not have an impact is being passive.”
___
7 a.m.
The Norwegian committee that chooses the Nobel Peace Prize winner sorted through more than 300 nominations for this year’s award, which recognizes both accomplishments and intentions.
The prize announcement comes Friday in the Norwegian capital Oslo, culminating a week in which Nobel laureates have been named in medicine, physics, chemistry and literature.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee does not release names of those it considers for the prize, but said 215 individuals and 103 organizations were nominated.
Observers see the Syrian volunteer humanitarian organization White Helmets as a top contender, along with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini for shepherding the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
