US President Donald Trump's obsession with winning the Nobel Peace Prize next month may have hit a hitch — the stubborn independence of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which insisted that it cannot be swayed.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has made it clear he wants the prestigious accolade, which his Democratic rival Barack Obama won to the surprise of many shortly after taking office in 2009.
The 79-year-old billionaire has taken every opportunity to say he "deserves it", claiming to have ended six wars, even though those in Gaza and Ukraine — which he says he wants to resolve — continue to rage.
"Of course, we do notice that there is a lot of media attention towards particular candidates," the secretary of the committee, Kristian Berg Harpviken, said in an interview in Oslo.
"But that really has no impact on the discussions that are going on in the committee."
"The committee considers each individual nominee on his or her own merits," he said.
This year's laureate will be announced on October 10.
Trump has backed up his claim that he deserves the prize by pointing out that several foreign leaders, from Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev, have either nominated him or backed his nomination.
However, they would have to have been extremely quick, or prescient, for this year's prize given that nominations had to be submitted by January 31, just 11 days after Trump took office.
Phone call
"To be nominated is not necessarily a great achievement. The great achievement is to become a laureate," Berg Harpviken said.
"You know, the list of individuals who can nominate is quite long."
Those eligible include members of parliament and cabinet ministers from every country in the world, former laureates, and some university professors. Thousands or even tens of thousands of people are therefore able to put a name forward.
This year, the committee will pick the winner from a longlist of 338 individuals and organisations. The list is kept secret for 50 years.
The most worthy candidates make it onto a shortlist, with each name then evaluated by an expert.
"When the committee discusses, it's that knowledge base that frames the discussion. It's not whatever media report has received the most attention in the last 24 hours," said Berg Harpviken, who guides the committee but doesn't vote.
"We are very aware that every year there are a number of campaigns, and we do our utmost to structure the process and the meetings in such a way that we are not unduly influenced by any campaign," he said.
Trump raised the issue of the Peace Prize with Norway's Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg — the former NATO secretary general — during a phone call about tariffs at the end of July, according to financial daily Dagens Naeringsliv.
The finance ministry confirmed the call had taken place but not whether the two had discussed the Nobel.
Unlikely laureate?
While the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are nominated by Norway's parliament, the committee insists its decisions are taken independently of party politics and the sitting government.
A case in point is that it ignored the Norwegian government's discreet warnings and awarded the 2010 prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, sparking a diplomatic deep freeze between Beijing and Oslo that lasted for years.
"The Nobel Committee acts entirely independently and cannot allow itself to take those considerations into account when it discusses individual candidates," Berg Harpviken said.
