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IAEA, ElBaradei win peace prize

The UN nuclear watchdog and its head Mohamed ElBaradei, who clashed with Washington over Iraq, won the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday for fighting the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Nobel Committee praised the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and ElBaradei, a 63-year-old Egyptian, for their battle to stop states and terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons, and to ensure safe civilian use of nuclear energy.

In Vienna, ElBaradei said the award, first given in 1901, would give him and his agency a much needed "shot in the arm" as they tackle nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea.

He said he had been sure he would not win, despite being a favorite from a list of 199 candidates, because he had not received the traditional advance telephone call from the Nobel Committee. He learned of his win from TV.

Congratulations came from world leaders like British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, who said he was "delighted."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, also a peace laureate, called it "a welcome reminder of the acute need to make progress on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament."

The IAEA has had little success in recent standoffs with Iran and North Korea, and ElBaradei has faced criticism from many quarters, most recently from both the US and Iran in his efforts to investigate Tehran's nuclear program.

Washington had opposed his reappointment to a new term.

He came to prominence before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by challenging Washington's argument that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were found.

Some experts say the IAEA has achieved too little in North Korea and Iran to merit the prize.

ElBaradei is unbowed.

"There have been two nuclear shocks to the world already," ElBaradei once said. "The Chernobyl accident and the IAEA's discovery of Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program. It is vital we do all in our power to prevent a third."

The Nobel Committee said it hoped that the award would spur work to outlaw atomic weapons 60 years after the US atom bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

ElBaradei was an "unafraid advocate" of measures to strengthen non-proliferation, it said.

"At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA's work is of incalculable importance," the committee said.

The prize is worth US$1.3 million and is due to be handed out in Oslo on Dec. 10.

One expert said the prize would have been less controversial if it had gone to the IAEA alone. ElBaradei's inclusion "is an implicit criticism of the United States," said Stein Toennesson, head of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

Green activists also voiced outrage, saying the IAEA had helped military nuclear proliferation by encouraging civilian nuclear power.

A French group, Sortir du Nucleaire (Get Out of Nuclear) said the IAEA should be scrapped because, by "promoting" civilian nuclear plants, it had given countries the means to build atomic bombs.

"The IAEA is hoodwinking the public by claiming that its inspections are preventing access to nuclear weapons by countries that have signed the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty," Sortir du Nucleaire said in a statement.

In Amsterdam, the Greenpeace International spokesman Mike Townsley said ElBaradei had been "a voice of sanity" in his advocacy of a nuclear-free Middle East.

In Gdansk, former Polish president and Nobel peace laureate Lech Walesa said he was disappointed that the prize went to an organization, not an individual.

"The Nobel prize should go to individuals. Alfred Nobel was himself very much an individualist and I believe his prize should reward, encourage and support those who do something important for their country or for the world," he said.
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