With its pick, Nobel Committee draws renewed attention to India-Pakistan conflict
Griff Witte | Washington Post
LONDON — In a year of rapidly proliferating conflicts, the Swedish Nobel Committee on Friday renewed attention on one of the world’s most durable and dangerous standoffs by splitting its annual peace prize between a teenage Pakistani activist and a graying Indian Gandhian.
The richly symbolic selection brings together individuals who took very different paths to the award, but who hold much in common in their outspoken advocacy for the rights of children.
The pick also reaches across ethnic, religious and political lines to kindle new hopes for peace on the South Asian subcontinent, where one-fifth of the world’s population lives.
The conflict between India and Pakistan — a tense showdown between nuclear-armed neighbors that has featured four major wars over 67 years — has flared again in recent days, with cross-border shelling in the disputed region of Kashmir.
The prime ministers of the two nations may have an important and unusual chance to discuss the conflict in person in December at the Nobel awards ceremony, having been invited by the winners. Although there was no immediate response, the invitation puts pressure on both leaders to translate the warm feelings generated by Friday’s prize into more concrete progress toward a deescalation.
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