Last Updated: September 01, 2023, 18:41 IST
King Carl XVI Gustaf and professor Evi Heldin arrive to the Nobel Prize Banquet at the Town Hall in Stockholm, Sweden December 10, 2022. (TT News Agency/Pontus Lundahl via Reuters)
Ambassadors from Russia, Belarus, and Iran invited back to Nobel Prize banquet after last year’s exclusion due to Ukraine invasion
Russian and Belarusian ambassadors have been invited back to the Nobel Prize banquet in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, after their exclusion last year due to the Ukraine conflict, announced the Nobel Foundation. The list of invitees to the December event also includes Iran as the foundation wants to involve “even those who do not share the values” of the Nobel Prize.
“It is clear that the world is increasingly divided into spheres, where dialogue between those with differing views is being reduced,” said Vidar Helgesen, executive director of the Nobel Foundation, in a statement Thursday. “To counter this tendency, we are now broadening our invitations to celebrate and understand the Nobel Prize and the importance of free science, free culture and free, peaceful societies,” Helgesen said.
This reversal of last year’s decision is likely to draw the ire of the Western countries who also back the exclusion of athletes from Russia and Belarus from competing in numerous sporting events.
In the statement, the Nobel Foundation added that the world “we are living in an increasingly polarised world, characterised by the denial of science, resistance to knowledge and threats to freedom of expression, democracy and human rights.”
The foundation said these are tendencies that stand in sharp contrast to the values that underpin the Nobel Prize. “The achievements recognised by the Nobel Prize require openness, exchange and dialogue between people and nations. The Nobel Foundation would like to reach out with this message to everyone, even to those who do not share the values of the Nobel Prize,” the statement said.
The Nobel Banquet is held in Stockholm on December 10 annually, where five of the six Nobel Prizes are presented. The Nobel Peace Prize, however, is awarded in Oslo, Norway.
A member of the European Parliament from Sweden has rebuked the decision made by the Nobel Foundation as “extremely inappropriate.”
“The Nobel Committee contributes to set a precedent, a very dangerous precedent, giving a green light to invite Russia to a glamorous party while the missiles fall over Ukrainian cultural centers and murder children,” Swedish Liberal MEP Karin Karlsbro was quoted as saying by CNN.
Karlsbro alleged that Russia, Belarus, and Iran “suppress their citizens, wage war and terror both in their own and neighboring countries,” and “in no way subscribe to democratic values.”
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