The Nobel Basis reversed course on Saturday and stated it might not invite the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus to the Nobel Prize award ceremony, acknowledging that an earlier resolution to take action had prompted backlash.
Each Russia and Belarus had been disinvited from the ceremony final 12 months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; the group additionally retracted Iran’s invitation after a harsh authorities crackdown on anti-government protests. However this previous week, the muse stated it might invite representatives of the three international locations to the December ceremony in Stockholm — a transfer that drew indignant responses from a number of Swedish lawmakers, who stated they’d boycott the ceremony.
The Nobel Basis stated in an announcement on Saturday that the choice to reinvite the three international locations’ envoys this 12 months had been based mostly on longstanding coverage “to achieve out as extensively as attainable with the values and messages that the Nobel Prize stands for” — however acknowledged that it had “provoked sturdy reactions” that had “fully overshadowed this message.”
Consequently, the muse stated, it might “repeat final 12 months’s exception to common follow — that’s, to not invite the ambassadors of Russia, Belarus and Iran” to the award ceremony in Stockholm. Representatives from Russia, Belarus and Iran can be invited to a separate ceremony in Oslo as they had been earlier than, the assertion added.
