The largest nuclear powers will not be represented at the highest level when the year’s peace prize is presented next month.
This year’s Nobel peace prize goes to ICAN – The International Campaign for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Several of the world’s major nuclear powers are not enthusiastic about the presentation, and a number of foreign ambassadors won’t attend the award ceremony, according to NRK news.
‘We wish to highlight our reservations regarding ICAN’s project, i.e. the ban on nuclear weapons, and the UN treaty negotiated in New York,’ confirmed Véronique Minassian, advisor at the French Embassy. France, therefore, will send its vice ambassador, who will attend as the cheaper, poorer version of the head honcho.
Last week, the embassies of the United States, Britain and France were in a meeting with the Nobel Institute, where they announced the decision.
Olav Njølstad, director of the Nobel Institute and secretary of the Nobel Committee, believes this means that States that have nuclear weapons regard themselves as indifferent to the year’s prize, which has previously been won by Henry ‘Bombing of South East Asia’ Kissinger, Barack ‘Drone Strike’ Obama, and South Africa’s Apartheid President, F.W. de Klerk.
‘It is absolutely common for ambassadors to come to the presentation if they can,” he said.
The United States and the United Kingdom will be represented, but with cheaper, poorer deputy ambassadors, in a similar way to France. The Russian embassy announced that their ambassador will come.
The Israeli Embassy would, at first, be sending their Embassy Secretary to the Peace Prize ceremony, instead of their Ambassador.
On Thursday morning, the embassy announced that the ambassador would attend to avoid misunderstandings that the original decision could be politically motivated and related to the year’s peace prize winner. The Israeli embassy emphasized that it was not.
The other nuclear powers, Pakistan, India, and China, stated various reasons why the Ambassador was not coming. They will send out ambassadors or ambassadorial secretaries, while China will be completely absent.
The nuclear power, North Korea, has no embassy in Norway, nor are they invited.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
