US President Barack Obama today expressed his surprise after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just nine months after taking office.
Mr Obama said he did not view the award as a recognition of his own accomplishments “but rather an affirmation of American leadership”.
The bestowal of one of the world's top accolades on the president was greeted with surprise by commentators in the US and around the world.
Mr Obama said he felt humbled and unworthy of being counted in the company of the "transformative figures" of history who had won it.
"I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century," he said in the White House Rose Garden.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs later said Mr Obama will give the roughly $1.4 million that accompanies the prize to charity.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Mr Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," citing his fledgling push for nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world.
Mr Obama has been widely credited with improving America's global image after the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush, who alienated both friends and foes with go-it-alone policies like the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
But critics called the Nobel committee's decision premature, given that Mr Obama so far has made little tangible headway as he grapples with challenges ranging from the war in Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea.
Mr Obama, who got the news of the prize in a pre-dawn call from his press secretary, now also has the burden of living up to its expectations.
The first African-American to hold his country's highest office, Mr Obama (48) has struggled with a litany of foreign policy problems bequeathed to him by Bush, while taking a more multilateral approach than his predecessor.
Mr Obama acknowledged while accepting an award predicated on the pursuit of peace, he was commander-in-chief of a country in two wars. "We have to confront the world as we know it," he said.
He received the honor the same day he was convening his war council to weigh whether to send thousands more US troops to Afghanistan to turn the tide against a resurgent Taliban.
Despite troubles at home including a battered economy and and fierce healthcare debate that have eroded his once-lofty approval ratings, the Democratic US president is still widely seen around the world as an inspirational figure.
"Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the Nobel committee said in its citation.
But some analysts saw the award as a final slap in the face for Bush from the European establishment, which had resented what they saw as arrogance and recklessness in world affairs.
Mr Obama will travel to Oslo to receive the prize on December 10th, Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
While the award won praise from such statesmen as Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev, both Nobel laureates, it was also attacked in some quarters as hasty and undeserved.
Afghanistan's Taliban mocked the award.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, speaking to Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location, said it was absurd to give a peace award to a man who had sent 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, and Mr Obama "should have won the 'Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians.'"
Mr Obama is considering a request from his top commander in Afghanistan to send him at least 40,000 more troops.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and opposes a peace treaty with Israel, said the award was premature at best.
Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland rejected suggestions from journalists that Mr Obama was getting the prize too early, saying it recognized what he had already done over the past year.
"We hope this can contribute a little bit to enhance what he is trying to do," he told a news conference.
Mr Obama is the fourth US president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after Jimmy Carter won in 2002, Woodrow Wilson picked it up in 1919 and Theodore Roosevelt was chosen for the 1906 prize.
At home, Mr Obama's popularity is flagging under the pressure of rising unemployment and a divisive, sometimes bitter debate over his healthcare reform plans.
Abroad, he is still widely seen around the world as an inspirational figure.
Mr Obama is the third senior US Democrat to win the prize this decade after former vice president Al Gore won in 2007 along with the UN climate panel and Jimmy Carter in 2002.
The prize worth 10 million Swedish crowns (€970,000) will be handed over in Oslo on December 10th.
Reuters