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Director General of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei laughs
with tears in his eyes while talking to journalists during a press
conference.(AFP) |
Mohamed ElBaradei and his International Atomic Energy agency won the
2005 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, leaving the chief U.N. nuclear inspector
strengthened in a job he nearly lost because of a dispute with the United
States over Iran and Iraq.
ElBaradei suggested winning the world's most prestigious award
vindicated his methods and goals — using diplomacy rather than
confrontation and defusing tensions in multilateral negotiations that
strive for consensus.
He also suggested the conflict with Washington was over, saying
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "wished me well" in a congratulatory
phone call.
The Bush administration has bristled at ElBaradei's positions on the
nuclear threat posed by Iran and Iraq and unsuccessfully lobbied to block
his appointment to a third and final four-year term this year. The
endorsement by the Nobel committee was viewed as a major boost to the
63-year-old Egyptian and his mandate to curb nuclear proliferation.
ElBaradei and the IAEA locked horns with
Washington in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war by challenging U.S. claims
that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. More recently,
ElBaradei's refusal to back U.S. assertions that Iran has a covert nuclear
weapons program hardened opposition to him within the Bush administration.
After the award was announced, ElBaradei refrained from criticizing the
United States in comments to Associated Press Television News and two
other media outlets.
"I don't see it as a critique of the U.S.," he said Friday. "We had
disagreement before the Iraq war, honest disagreement. We could have been
wrong, they could have been right."
Instead, he said, the honor was "a message: 'Hey guys, you need to get
your act together you need to work together in multinational
institutions.'"
The award also was a signal "going to the Arab world, going to the
Western world that we ... have a lot in common and we need to work
together to survive," ElBaradei said.
(Agencies) |