El Baradei, IAEA share 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

VIENNA, Austria -- Mohammed ElBaradei prides himself on remaining cool under pressure, but he showed unusual flashes of emotion on learning Friday that he and his International Atomic Energy Agency had won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

His eyes misted up several times behind his glasses as he spoke with reporters about the delight -- and surprise -- he felt when he heard on television that he and the U.N. nuclear watchdog had been picked to share the world's most prestigious award.

'An absolute surprise'

"This came as an absolute surprise to me," the austere, 63-year-old IAEA director general told reporters. "I was just on my feet with my wife, hugging and kissing and full of joy and full of pride."

Because he stayed home Friday instead of coming into his office, he missed the Nobel committee's phone call to IAEA's Vienna headquarters, as well as a visit from Norwegian diplomats bearing a floral bouquet.

ElBaradei figured someone else had been honored -- until he heard his name on TV.

The Nobel endorsement has particular resonance for ElBaradei, strengthening him in a job he nearly lost over a dispute with the United States over Iran and Iraq. His winning, he suggested, vindicated his methods and goals -- using diplomacy rather than confrontation and defusing tensions in multilateral negotiations that strive for consensus.

He also suggested the conflict with Washington was past, saying Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "wished me well" in a congratulatory phone call.

The Bush administration has bristled at ElBaradei's positions on the nuclear threat posed by Iran and Iraq and unsuccessfully lobbied to block his appointment to a third and final four-year term this year. The Nobel was viewed as a major boost to the Egyptian diplomat and his mandate to curb nuclear proliferation.

Getting their act together

ElBaradei and the IAEA locked horns with Washington in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war by challenging U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. More recently, ElBaradei's refusal to back U.S. assertions that Iran has a covert nuclear weapons program has hardened opposition to him within the Bush administration.

After the award was announced, ElBaradei refrained from criticizing the United States in comments to Associated Press Television News and two other media outlets.

"I don't see it as a critique of the U.S." he said Friday. "We had disagreement before the Iraq war, honest disagreement."

Instead, ElBaradei said, the honor was "a message -- 'Hey guys, you need to get your act together; you need to work together in multinational institutions.'"

The award also was a signal "going to the Arab world, going to the Western world that we ... have a lot in common and we need to work together to survive," ElBaradei said.

Describing his phone conversation with Rice, he said they both "agreed that we will have to continue to work together" on issues including dispelling suspicions about Iran's nuclear ambitions and getting North Korea to return to the nonproliferation fold.

"The award sends a very strong message: 'Keep doing what you are doing,"' he said. "We continue to believe that in all of our activities we have to be impartial, objective and work with integrity."

In Washington, Rice reaffirmed in a statement that the Bush administration was "committed to working with the IAEA to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons technology."

The Nobel Committee recognized ElBaradei and the U.N. nuclear agency "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way."

"At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA's work is of incalculable importance," it said.

ElBaradei and the agency were among the favorites to win as speculation mounted the Nobel Committee would seek to honor the victims of nuclear weapons and those who try to contain their use.

The committee has repeatedly awarded its peace prize to anti-nuclear weapons campaigners on the major anniversaries of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Among the dozens of foreign leaders congratulating ElBaradei was German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder -- a critic of the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam. He praised ElBaradei's "courageous stand for an objective view of the situation in the run-up to the Iraq war."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he hoped the award would bring greater appreciation of the work of the agency.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf also applauded the committee's decision -- despite often tense relations with the IAEA, most recently over revelations of an enormous nuclear black market run by disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

ElBaradei's agency has been pivotal in nearly three years of investigations into Iran's suspect nuclear activities, including programs that can be used for making weapons.

Last month, the IAEA board put Iran on notice that it faces referral to the U.N. Security Council unless it dispels international concerns about it nuclear aims.

The agency has had no control over North Korea since the country quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003, but ElBaradei has said he hopes to have his inspectors back in the country soon in the wake of the North's announcement that it wants to end its atomic weapons program.

In Iraq, IAEA inspectors searched for evidence of a nuclear weapons program in the months ahead of the 2003 U.S. invasion but failed to find concrete evidence to back U.S. assertions Saddam's regime had such a program.

The Nobel committee received a record 199 nominations for the peace prize, which includes $1.3 million, a gold medal and a diploma. ElBaradei and the IAEA will share the award when they receive it Dec. 10 in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.