United States President Donald Trump on Monday claimed he can get a Nobel Prize for “a lot of things” if it was fairly given. Trump said this when a reporter suggested that he could be a contender if he were to resolve the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was also present in the press meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York City. Earlier during the meeting, Trump had said his offer to mediate in the Kashmir dispute was still in place if both countries agreed to it. Calling himself an “extremely good arbitrator”, Trump said, “If I can help, I will certainly do that.”

The president had made such an offer for the first time during a meeting with Khan at the White House in July. India, however, has rejected the mediation offer, saying the dispute will only be solved bilaterally.

“I think I’m going to get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things, if they gave it out fairly, which they don’t,” Trump said. “They gave it out – well, they gave one to [his predecessor Barack] Obama immediately upon his ascent to the presidency, and he had no idea why he got it. And you know what? That was the only thing I agreed with him on.”

Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 in his first year as president. Of the four presidents to have won the honour, he was the first to get it for his vision more than his work. Obama himself said he did not view the award “as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership”, and accepted it as a “call to action”.

In February, Trump had claimed that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize for starting dialogue with North Korea. He claimed Abe had given him “the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize”.

Trump had also complained that he would never get the Nobel Peace Prize despite his work in North Korea and the Syrian conflict. He had added that Obama had been president “for about 15 seconds and he got the Nobel Prize”.

Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had met in June 2018 in Singapore for a historic summit – the first time leaders of the two countries met. Kim had then committed to the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula. They again met in February in Vietnam but the meeting ended abruptly following a disagreement over sanctions imposed on North Korea. The two leaders had an impromptu meeting in June on Trump’s invitation.

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