Obama Nobel speech hailed in Norway

Fri, 11 Dec 2009

Oslo - US President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech was cited as both "unusual" and visionary, Norwegian academics and politicians said Friday. Obama's speech was delivered Thursday after he received the award in Oslo City Hall. The president did not shy away from tough words like war, Professor Jan Svennevig told the Aftenposten daily.

He mentioned war or wars 35 times, while there were 26 mentions of peace, said Svennevig, a rhetoric expert at Oslo University.

"I think this will go down in history as one of the great Nobel Peace Prize speeches," Professor Ole Moen, an expert on US affairs at Oslo University, said.

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store wrote in an entry on the microblogging site Twitter that "there is a lot to say. The entirety was the best, the choice between realist/idealist is a non-choice, you have to be a realist to achieve ideal aims."

Former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland said it was an "unusual" speech, noting the references to some issues the president is facing at home and that he "centered on the dilemma of war," she told the Dagbladet newspaper.

Jan Egeland, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and a former UN envoy, said the speech was very important, noting the president had definitely set "a new tone" in international diplomacy.