Nobel Peace Prize for Malaysia’s Anwar? Not if Trump gets his way

The diplomatic success of the Thai-Cambodian peace deal has sparked a battle for credit

Supporters of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim are calling for him to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, days after he brokered a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia, for which US President Donald Trump has also taken the lion’s share of credit.

Anwar hosted the leaders of Cambodia and Thailand for truce talks in Kuala Lumpur on Monday alongside observers from the United States and China. The two Southeast Asian neighbours agreed to a ceasefire in their fight over competing border claims.

But the diplomatic success has sparked a battle for credit. The White House issued a statement hailing Trump’s “decisive leadership” in ending hostilities, with the US president later calling himself the “president of peace” and downplaying Malaysia’s role.

In response, former lawmaker Yusmadi Yusoff, who also penned a memoir on Anwar, launched a petition on Thursday to recognise the Malaysian leader’s “dialogical leadership” that he said was unique and lacking among global leaders.

“As a Muslim democrat and global statesman, Anwar is an unwavering proponent of justice through dialogue, navigating domestic complexity and international diplomacy with moral clarity and restraint,” Yusmadi said.

Yet momentum around the Change.org petition has been slow, garnering close to 250 signatures by noon on Friday.

Trump’s claim of brokering the Southeast Asian ceasefire struck a nerve among Malaysians and others in the region, who said that the US leader’s contribution was minor, compared to Anwar’s. The Malaysian prime minister leads the Asean bloc as its chair this year.

Some pointed at Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet’s comments at the ceasefire agreement on Monday, saying Anwar personally reached out to him on the matter two days before Trump, despite thanking both leaders for their efforts.

“Trump may have spoken to both parties, but to expect a Nobel Peace Prize after a telephone call is stark,” one commenter said on social media.

Trump has long launched a campaign for a Nobel, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying it was “well past time” that he received the accolade, citing his role in solving conflicts between Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia.

But in that time, the US has also bombed Iran, failed in Trump’s stated aim of ending the Ukraine war and fuelled Israel’s destruction of Gaza with billions of dollars of weapons while offering a diplomatic shield against accusations of a Palestinian genocide.

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