Russian President Vladimir Putin praised President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate peace deals around the world, specifically citing his work brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas.
‘He’s really doing a lot to resolve such complex crises that have lasted for years and even decades,’ Putin said at a summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he met with leaders of nations once part of the former Soviet Union.
The remarks came in response to a question about whether he felt Trump had been passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The award was given Friday morning to Venezuelan opposition leader and democracy activist María Corina Machado.
‘There have been cases where the committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to people who have done nothing for peace,’ Putin said. ‘A person comes — good or bad — and [gets it] in a month, in two months — boom. For what? He didn’t do anything at all.
‘In my view, these decisions have done enormous damage to the prestige of this prize,’ he continued.
In September, Trump alluded to the likelihood that he would again be passed over for the Nobel Prize despite helping to end several conflicts.
‘If this works out, we’ll have eight — eight in eight months. That’s pretty good,’ Trump said during remarks to dozens of top generals and admirals in Quantico, Virginia. ‘Nobody’s ever done that. Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not.
‘They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing,’ he continued. ‘They’ll give it to the guy who wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump and what it took to solve the wars. The Nobel Prize will go to a writer.’