OSLO – Nobel Peace Prize 2019 announced by Nobel Committee. Ethiopian PrimeMinister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts toresolve the long-running conflict with neighbouring rival Eritrea.
Abiy was honoured “for his efforts to achieve peace and internationalcooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve theborder conflict with neighbouring Eritrea,” the Nobel Committee said.
Since assuming power in April 2018, after years of civil unrest in thenation, 43-year-old Abiy Ahmed has started mending relations with Eritreafollowing decades of conflict between the countries.
On July 9, 2018, following a historic meeting in Eritrea’s capital Asmara,Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki formally ended a 20-year-oldstalemate between the countries in the wake of the 1998-2000 borderconflict.
A peace deal was signed later that year, and embassies have been reopenedand flight routes between the countries resumed.
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The continent’s youngest leader has instilled a certain optimism in aregion of Africa marred by violence.
“There is a wind of hope blowing in the Horn of Africa,” UNSecretary-General Antonio Guterres said in September 2018.
The Nobel jury stressed that the Peace Prize was “also meant to recogniseall the stakeholders working for peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia andin the East and Northeast African regions.”
