On a visit to the US earlier this month, Britain’s foreign secretary Boris Johnson suggested that President Donald Trump should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Johnson made that surprising statement while visiting the White House in an unsuccessful bid to persuade Trump to reconsider his plans to withdraw from the hard-won Iran nuclear deal.

“If he can fix North Korea and if he can fix the Iran nuclear deal then I don’t see why he is any less of a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than Barack Obama, who got it before he even did anything,” Johnson told Sky News hours before Trump reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

Regarding the Nobel Prize, however, Johnson was echoing the sentiments of a group of 18 leading Republicans in the House of Representatives who, in a letter to the Nobel Committee in Norway, pushed for considering Trump in appreciation of “his tireless work to bring peace to our world”.

Like Johnson, the letter highlighted Trump’s ongoing diplomatic discussions with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which were expected to lead to a historic summit within the next few weeks before his sudden turnaround on the Iran deal.

While Metro Éireann welcomes every effort to resolve the North Korea issue, we do not believe that a man who has completely polarised the world as much has he has, making it difficult for people to find a middle ground, can or should be honoured with such a special prize.

news@metroeireann.com