Trump complains he deserves Nobel Prize
US president Donald Trump aired one of his oldest grievances at the United Nations on Monday: that it’s unfair he never got the Nobel peace prize.
‘I would get a Nobel prize for a lot of things, if they give it out fairly, which they don’t,’ he complained.
Trump went on to raise the surprise awarding of the one of the world’s most prestigious accolades in 2009 to his predecessor in the White House Barack Obama.
Obama was given the peace prize for ‘extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people,’ even though he had only just become president.
‘They gave one to Obama immediately upon his ascent to the presidency and he had no idea why he got it. You know what? That was the only thing I agreed with him on,’ Trump said.
The US president was speaking at a bilateral meeting with Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Imran Khan pressed Trump to restart talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban and said Washington has a ‘duty’ to calm the Kashmir standoff with India.
‘Stability in Afghanistan means stability in Pakistan,’ Khan said at the start of a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
He also pleaded for help in Kashmir, a disputed Muslim-majority territory, part of which has been placed under a military clampdown by neighbouring India, restricting many basic freedoms.
‘The most powerful country in the world has a responsibility,’ Khan said, calling India’s clampdown ‘a siege’ and warning that the ‘crisis is going to get much bigger.’
Trump responded that he would ‘certainly’ help mediate between Pakistan and India as long as both governments asked for this.
On Afghanistan, Trump said it was ‘ridiculous’ that the United States had been fighting there for 19 years.
However he made no promises about restarting peace talks with the Taliban, saying only ‘we’ll see.’
Trump has frequently called for an end to America’s longest war, launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
