South Korean President Moon Jae-in has raised some eyebrows with the suggestion that Donald Trump should receive a Nobel Peace Prize.
At a cabinet meeting on Monday, Moon told his ministers that he was “confident that a new era of peace will unfold on the Korean peninsula”, and praised his American counterpart’s role in the recent thawing of relations with Pyongyang.
Responding to a letter from one of South Korea’s past first ladies calling for Moon to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Moon said: “It's President Trump who should receive the Nobel Prize. We only need to take peace.”
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He has previously said the US President deserved “big credit” for the recent thawing in relations with North Korea, The Independent reports.
The suggestion might seem bold, but the success of Friday’s inter-Korean summit means Moon has “the political capital to make these kinds of statements about Trump, however eyebrow-raising they may be to his domestic constituents”, says NPR.
Since Moon’s landmark talks with Kim Jong Un on Friday, Pyongyang has said it is to close a nuclear testing facility and bring the North Korean timezone into line with the South, while Seoul has agreed to cease loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts at the border.
Trump is set to meet Kim within weeks for the first-ever talks between sitting US president and a North Korean leader.
The image of Trump being crowned as a peacemaker on the level of Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela was met with incredulity by some on social media:
But for his admirers, it was a moment to crow about:
One person likely to approve Moon’s sentiment is Trump himself, who has repeatedly attributed the fresh hope for peace on the peninsula to his own policies:
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