British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, London time, to highlight the European solidarity, ensuring media coverage of their meeting at 10 Downing Street.
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Starmer and Zelensky did not hold a press conference and made no comments that might create any tension with Trump before the summit in Alaska, but the images of the London meeting came one day after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosted Zelensky in Berlin for a similar show of unity.
News site Politico said a government official in Oslo, who it did not name, had confirmed the Trump phone call about the Nobel Peace Prize.
The phone call came at a sensitive time between the US and Norway because Trump is preparing to impose new tariff on the country, among many others, and was due to speak to Norwegian Prime Minister Janus Store.
Stoltenberg confirmed the call in a statement to Politico but did not comment on whether the discussion included the prize.
“It is true that President Trump called me a few days before his conversation with Prime Minister Store,” he said.
Trump was overdue for the Nobel Peace Prize, the White House has said.Credit: AP
Trump set a tariff rate of 15 per cent for Norway in his trade decision on July 31, in line with the rate for its neighbours. Norway is not a member of the European Union.
Last year, the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, a group that lobbies governments to abolish nuclear weapons. It awarded the prize to Barack Obama in 2009, in his first term as US president.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on August 1 that Trump had used “maximum leverage” to gain peace and was overdue for the Nobel.
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Leavitt cited the president’s talks to end conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, Pakistan and India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Serbia and Kosovo and Egypt and Ethiopia.
She also cited an end to conflict between Israel and Iran. The two countries are not currently engaged in fighting but are not at peace following Trump’s decision to deploy bunker-busting bombs against Iran’s nuclear sites.
“This means President Trump has brokered, on average, about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office,” Leavitt said.
“It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Since those remarks, Trump has hosted leaders from Azerbaijan and Armenia to sign a peace deal at the White House.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump in July, when they spoke at the White House, that he had nominated him for the prize. As cameras filmed their meeting, Netanyahu handed Trump the letter he had sent to the Nobel Committee.
The Pakistan government said in June it would nominate Trump for the prize, while Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said last week he had lodged a nomination in Trump’s favour.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev praised Trump at their White House appearance and backed the idea of giving him the prize.
Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Breitbart News, a conservative media outlet, that Trump “absolutely” deserved the prize for his help in ending a long conflict with the DRC.
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