Pakistan says it wants to recommend Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Pakistan has announced its intention to recommend Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his role in de-escalating the recent conflict between India and Pakistan.
The accolade is one President Trump has openly expressed a desire for, having previously lamented a perceived lack of credit for his diplomatic efforts.
The nomination stems from President Trump's intervention in May, which saw a surprise ceasefire announcement bring an abrupt end to a four-day confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbours. President Trump has since repeatedly claimed that his actions averted a nuclear war and saved millions of lives.
The move by Pakistan has prompted speculation among some analysts within the country that it could be a strategic effort to influence President Trump's position on a potential joint strike with Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities. Pakistan has previously condemned Israel's actions in the region as a violation of international law and a significant threat to regional stability.
Pakistan agrees that U.S. diplomatic intervention ended the fighting, but India says it was a bilateral agreement between the two militaries.
"President Trump demonstrated great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship through robust diplomatic engagement with both Islamabad and New Delhi, which de-escalated a rapidly deteriorating situation," Pakistan said. "This intervention stands as a testament to his role as a genuine peacemaker."
Governments can nominate people for the Nobel Peace Prize. There was no immediate response from Washington. A spokesperson for the Indian government did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump has repeatedly said that he's willing to mediate between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region, their main source of enmity. Islamabad, which has long called for international attention to Kashmir, is delighted.
But his stance has upended U.S. policy in South Asia, which had favored India as a counterweight to China, and put in question previously close relations between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a social media post on Friday, Trump gave a long list of conflicts he said he had resolved, including India and Pakistan and the Abraham accords in his first term between Israel and some Muslim-majority countries. He added: "I won't get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do."
Pakistan's move to nominate Trump came in the same week its army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, met the U.S. leader for lunch. It was the first time that a Pakistani military leader had been invited to the White House when a civilian government was in place in Islamabad.
Trump's planned meeting with Modi at the G7 summit in Canada last week did not take place after the U.S. president left early, but the two later spoke by phone, in which Modi said "India does not and will never accept mediation" in its dispute with Pakistan, according to the Indian government.
Mushahid Hussain, a former chair of the Senate Defence Committee in Pakistan's parliament, suggested nominating Trump for the peace prize was justified.
"Trump is good for Pakistan," he said. "If this panders to Trump's ego, so be it. All the European leaders have been sucking up to him big time."
But the move was not universally applauded in Pakistan, where Trump's support for Israel's war in Gaza has inflamed passions.
"Israel's sugar daddy in Gaza and cheerleader of its attacks on Iran isn't a candidate for any prize," said Talat Hussain, a prominent Pakistani television political talk show host, in a post on X. 'And what if he starts to kiss Modi on both cheeks again after a few months?"
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The best outcome from the Iran conflict? Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan
Two major conflicts – Ukraine and Iran – are creating seismic upheaval in the tightly meshed world of post-Cold War alliances around the world. The biggest losers in this lethal game of musical chairs will likely be smaller nations who can no longer rely on the protection and patronage of greater powers whose priorities have been radically realigned. The immediate result is a panicked race to seek new partners, a desperate rush of diplomatic blind dating in which those newly exposed smaller countries have very few cards to play other than to make painful concessions. This week's meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia – the first ever official bi-lateral visit between the heads of these two countries is a case in point. Armenia has for decades turned its back on two of its immediate neighbours – Turkey and its ally Azerbaijan, with closed frontiers and no diplomatic relations. That has only been possible because of Yerevan's ability to depend on two other major regional powers – Iran to the south and Russia to the north. Those alliances created a confidence which translated into a fatal overreach when Armenia, three decades ago, invaded Azerbaijan and occupied a fifth of the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh, forcibly expelling some 800,000 Azerbaijanis and establishing a mono-ethnic Armenian state. For a generation, Azerbaijan's attempts to regain its territory through negotiation and diplomacy, despite resounding support for their sovereign rights over Karabakh from the UN Security Council, came to nothing. Russia, the former colonial power, could always be relied on to preserve the frozen conflict in ways which maintained Moscow's grip on its 'near abroad'. Then came 2020. In that year cross-border tit for tat between the two neighbours became a full-blown 44-day conflict, with Azerbaijan liberating much of Armenian-occupied territory. In 2023 what was not returned three years earlier was finally secured by Azerbaijan. To Yerevan's utter dismay, in both 2020 and 2023 its long-standing patron and formal military ally in the Kremlin was nowhere to be seen. Russia's Western imperial ambitions had exhausted its ability to maintain its old role of Caucasian puppet master to the south. Armenia was left to sink or swim. Azerbaijan's combat victories, cemented with a ceasefire but still today without a peace treaty, can be read as definitive proof that Russia had left the stage as far as Armenia was concerned. That might have led Pashinyan to seek urgent reconciliation with Turkey. Instead, Yerevan doubled down on its relationship with its one remaining regional protector, Iran. Arguably he had no option: decades of virulent anti-Turkish domestic and international rhetoric would probably have made any pro-Ankara realignment fatal to his own government at that point. And why risk alienating your one remaining powerful friend, Iran, by reaching out to its long-standing opponent Turkey? Just as the Ukraine war provoked one crisis for Armenia, the Iran war has provoked a second. But this time Iran's troubles and dramatically exposed weakness, with the Islamic Republic itself now friendless in a world where its ally Assad has fallen and the leverage of its proxy Houthi, Hezbollah and Hamas militias has been decimated, have left Yerevan not with one but with zero dependable allies. Even Armenia's ability to call on its once powerful diaspora lobby groups in the US and France is no longer a realistic strategy in today's climate, given the deeply problematic Iran connection. This is the sequence of events which has left Armenia with literally nowhere to turn but Ankara. Pashinyan, an intelligent politician who has shown some ability to negotiate within the desperately narrow space afforded by the tensions of geopolitical reality and domestic nationalist opinion, will need every ounce of skill to emerge from the current talks with a result which has both substance and domestic credibility. For now, concessions – if he is wise to take them – are his best card. Turkey will not contemplate normalisation of still less supportive friendship with Armenia unless Yerevan formally commits to a peace deal with Azerbaijan. The country's President Ilham Aliyev has long maintained such a peace deal needs to entail a rewriting of the Armenian constitution to remove extra-territorial claims on Azerbaijan's internationally recognised sovereign territory, the establishment of a formal right to return of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia during the break-up of the Soviet Union, and agreement on a land corridor through Armenia (would earn huge income) enabling Azerbaijan and countries from Asia the swiftest land route to Europe. Some in Armenia will see these as too painful to concede. Wiser heads will see them for what they are: economic and diplomatic opportunities to move forward after over three decades of conflict. If Pashinyan can take this unpalatable medicine – and if by some miracle he can sell it to his electorate, Armenia stands to benefit. A chance of establishing new partnerships with more reliable neighbours, the enormous benefits of regional economic and energy integration after decades of impoverished isolation, a chance in fact for normalisation, peace and prosperity. The alternative is too foolhardy to contemplate.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Pakistan to recommend Donald Trump for Nobel peace prize
Pakistan has announced that it will formally recommend President Trump as a nominee for the Nobel peace prize for his 'great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship' in securing a ceasefire its recent conflict with India. The announcement came on Saturday, hours after Trump took credit for a peace deal negotiated in Washington between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and at a time the US leader is considering potential intervention in the Middle East. • US moves B-2 stealth bombers as Israel-Iran conflict continues 'The government of Pakistan has decided to formally recommend President Donald J Trump for the 2026 Nobel peace prize,' the Pakistani government wrote on social media. It said the decision was taken 'in recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis'. It comes after Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, had an unprecedented one-on-one meeting with Trump on Wednesday at the White House, during which they engaged in discussions for more than two hours. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces, reported that Munir conveyed his 'deep appreciation' for Trump's role in brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after a four-day conflict in May between the two nuclear-armed nations. Last month, Trump recounted his memory of the conflict while speaking to reporters. 'I said, 'Come on, we're going to do a lot of trade with you guys [India and Pakistan]. Let's stop it. Let's stop it. If you stop it, we'll do a trade. If you don't stop it, we're not going to do any trade.'' India, meanwhile, denied that the US president had any role in its ceasefire with Pakistan. 'The talks regarding cessation of military action were held directly between India and Pakistan under the existing channels established between both militaries,' India's foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, said in a press release on Wednesday. Some analysts have said Pakistan's nomination is absurd. Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US and UN, said: 'Ingratiation cannot serve as policy. It is unfortunate that the government is recommending Trump for a Nobel peace prize. 'A man who has backed Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and called Israel's attack on Iran as 'excellent'. This move does not reflect the views of the people of Pakistan.' Despite concerns in Washington about Pakistan's close alignment with Beijing, Pakistan remains significant to the US. Islamabad has not alleviated these worries, particularly as it seeks new deals for advanced weaponry and technology from China, its primary arms supplier. Amit Ranjan, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, told The Sunday Times: 'Trump's lunch with Field Marshal Munir suggests a growing closeness between Pakistan and the US. However, the nature of this relationship will depend on how China looks at it. 'The nomination is Pakistan's way to thank Trump for his role in the ceasefire during military confrontation with India.' Pakistan has had a complicated security relationship with the US, collaborating with Washington while also supporting militants opposing Nato forces in Afghanistan. General Michael Kurilla, the head of US Central Command, recently commended Pakistan's military, describing their collaboration as a 'phenomenal partnership' in the fight against Afghanistan-based militant Islamist group Isis-K. Trump expressed gratitude to Pakistan for handing over an Isis-K member suspected of involvement in a bombing that killed 13 American troops during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In the past, Trump has received several Nobel peace prize nominations from his supporters, and is said to crave the award. However, on Friday he posted on social media to lament he will probably never win the accolade. 'No, I won't get a Nobel peace prize no matter what I do … whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that's all that matters to me!' he wrote.
Metro
an hour ago
- Metro
British man arrested on suspicion of terror offences near vital UK airbase
A British man has been arrested on suspicion of espionage and terrorism offences in Cyprus. The man is reported to have kept the RAF Akrotiri base on the island under surveillance and is alleged to have links with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. RAF Akrotiri is the UK's most important airbase for operations in the Middle East. Local media reported the man was arrested on Friday following intelligence that he was planning an imminent terrorist attack. He is alleged to have lived in a flat in Zakai, Limassol, close to Akrotiri and was observed near the base carrying a camera with a long lens and three mobile phones. Local reports suggested he was Azerbaijani, but the UK Foreign Office said they were working with the authorities over the arrest of a Briton. A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We are in contact with the authorities in Cyprus regarding the arrest of a British man.' His arrest comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel, as both countries have fired missiles at each other for well over a week now. Today, Israel's military said it struck an Iranian nuclear research facility overnight and killed three senior Iranian commanders in targeted attacks as the war between the two nations continued into a second week. The prospect of a wider war is threatened too, as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would resume attacks on US vessels and warships in the Red Sea if the Trump administration joins Israel's military campaign against Iran. The Houthis had paused such attacks in May as part of a deal with the administration. Early on Saturday, smoke could be seen rising from an area near a mountain in Isfahan, where a local official said Israel had attacked the nuclear research facility in two waves. The target was two centrifuge production sites, and the attacks came on top of strikes on other centrifuge production sites elsewhere in recent days, according to an Israeli military official speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines to brief reporters. It was the second attack on Isfahan, which was hit in the first 24 hours of the war as part of Israel's goal to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme. Akbar Salehi, Isfahan province's deputy governor for security affairs, confirmed the Israeli strikes had caused damage to the facility, but said there had been no human casualties. Iran launched a new wave of drones and missiles at Israel, but there were no immediate reports of significant damage, and the Israeli official called it a 'small barrage' that was largely intercepted by Israel's defences. The official said part of the reason that Iran's overnight attack had been relatively small was that the military had been targeting its launchers, and estimates it has now taken out more than 50% of them. 'We've been able to take out a large amount of their launchers, creating a bottleneck – we're making it harder for them to fire toward Israel,' he said. 'Having said all that, I want to say the Iranian regime obviously still has capabilities.' More Trending US President Donald Trump is still weighing active US military involvement in the war but, on Saturday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, 'I think that it would be very, very dangerous for everyone.' He spoke on the sidelines of an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Turkey. Barring a commando raid or even a nuclear strike, Iran's underground Fordo uranium enrichment facility is considered out of reach to all but America's 'bunker-buster' bombs. Trump said he would put off his decision on military involvement for up to two weeks. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Suspected terrorist arrested for 'plotting attack on British military base' MORE: Pro-Palestine group that broke into RAF base 'will be banned in the UK' MORE: Donald Trump's hand mark and 'cover up' raises concerns again
