President-elect Barack Obama should move quickly to try to resolve conflicts in the Middle East, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner said Wednesday after accepting a gold medal and $1.2 million in prize money.

“The credibility of the whole international community is at stake,” said Martti Ahtisaari, the Nobel winner, who is a former president of Finland and a veteran United Nations mediator. “We cannot go on, year after year, simply pretending to do something to help the situation in the Middle East. We must also get results.”

He urged Mr. Obama to give the region high priority during his first year in office.

“The European Union, Russia and the U.N. must also be seriously committed so that a solution can be found to the crises stretching from Israel and Palestine to Iraq and Iran,” Mr. Ahtisaari said. “If we want to achieve lasting results, we must look at the whole region.”

The Middle East is one of few parts of the world where Mr. Ahtisaari has not been a major player in conflict resolution. Earlier this year, though, he brought dozens of Iraqi Sunni and Shiite leaders to Finland for dialogue with “facilitators” from Northern Ireland and South Africa, where reconciliation has been partly successful.

Although he failed last year to bring Serbians and ethnic Albanians to agreement over the final status of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, his final recommendation to the United Nations Security Council became the basis for the Kosovo Assembly’s unilateral declaration of independence in February.

Perhaps his greatest achievement came in the wake of a tsunami that killed some 170,000 people in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh on Dec. 26, 2004. Mr. Ahtisaari used the Helsinki offices of his organization, Crisis Management Initiative, to hammer out a peace deal in which the Free Aceh Movement gave up violent secessionism and accepted limited autonomy for the province from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

From 1977 to 1990, Mr. Ahtisaari helped engineer Namibia’s independence from South Africa, and became an honorary Namibian citizen in the process.

“Many boys in Namibia are named Martti,” said Ole Danbolt Mjoes, the departing chairman of the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee. “That must be at least as great an honor as being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Katri Merikallio, the author of a book about Mr. Ahtisaari and a journalist for the Finnish magazine Suomen Kuvalehti, said the former president embodied a stoic toughness that Finns see as their national trait.

“In Finnish, we have a word, ‘sisu,’ which could be translated as having guts or stamina,” she said in Oslo. “Once you decide something, you don’t give in. We define ourselves quite a lot with this term, and it applies very much to him.”

In his acceptance speech, which he delivered in English, Mr. Ahtisaari said resolving the conflicts of the Middle East would require determination and a willingness to reach out to all parties. He proposed harnessing the religious impulses that until now had driven groups apart, and noted that religion “can also be a constructive force in peace-building.”

“We might be strengthened in our resolve,” he said, “if we set our sights on the future and imagine what the world could look like if the countries in the region could jointly begin to develop their economic potential, build transport links, make full use of their educated population and begin to reap the benefits of an advantageous location in the crossroads of three continents.”

（By WALTER GIBBS，Published: December 10, 2008，New York Times）

本年度诺贝尔奖和平奖得主周三(10日)在接受了一块金牌和120万美元奖金后表示，美国当选总统巴拉克•奥巴马应快速行动起来，力争解决中东地区的争端。

和平奖得主是芬兰前总统、联合国资深特使马尔蒂•阿赫蒂萨里。他说：“国际社会的信誉度已经到了危急存亡之秋。我们再不能对中东进程简单作点模样、年复一年地走下去了。我们还必须看到结果。”

他敦促奥巴马先生在任期的第一年，能优先考虑这个地区。

阿赫蒂萨里先生表示：“欧盟、俄罗斯和联合国也必须认真对待这件事。这样一来，我们能找到一种解决方法，来应对从以色列、巴勒斯坦一直延伸到伊拉克、伊朗的危机。如果希望获得长治久安的结果，我们必须放眼整个地区。”

在解决争端方面，阿赫蒂萨里先生在诸多地区都从事过重要斡旋工作。不过，在他未全力涉足的少数地方中，中东地区恰恰是其中的一个。不过，今年初，他曾经把几十个伊拉克逊尼派和什叶派领导人邀请到芬兰，让他们和来者北爱尔兰和南非的“协调人”进行对话。在这两个地方，争端双方的和解从某种程度上还比较成功。

去年，阿赫蒂萨里没能让使塞族人和阿尔巴尼亚族人就前南科索沃地区的最终地位达成协议。但是，他向联合国安理会提交的最后建议还是打下了某种基础，让科索沃议会于今年2月份单方面宣布科索沃独立。

或许他最成功的大手笔是2004年发生的海啸之后。当年的12月26日，在印度尼西亚动荡不已的亚齐省，海啸造成了大约17万人死亡。阿赫蒂萨里利用他建立的“危机管理倡议”组织在赫尔辛基的办公室，帮助印尼政府和分离主义组织“自由亚齐运动”达成一项和平协议。根据协议，“自由亚齐运动”承诺停止暴力分离活动，但可从印尼总统苏西洛那里得到在亚齐省内的有限自治。

在1977年到1990年期间，阿赫蒂萨里先生帮助纳米比亚设计规划，从南非独立了出来。在此过程中，他成了纳米比亚荣誉公民。

即将卸任的五人挪威诺贝尔委员会主席奥勒•丹博尔特•米约斯强调：“在纳米比亚，有很多男孩子都叫马尔蒂。仅此一项崇高荣誉，至少也可和诺贝尔奖和平奖相当。”

《芬兰画报》杂志记者卡特丽•梅里卡利奥曾写作过一本阿赫蒂萨里的传记。她说，这位芬兰前总统身上体现了一种坚韧克己的韧性，芬兰把此看作是本国人的品性。

梅里卡利奥在奥斯陆表示：“在芬兰，我们有个词叫‘sisu’；如果翻译出来，可以叫做‘有胆量或毅力’。一旦你决定要做一件事情，你就不应该让步。在很多场合下，我们都用这个词来形容自己。它用在阿赫蒂萨里先生身上，非常合适。”

在接受颁奖的典礼上，阿赫蒂萨里先生用英语发表演讲说，解决中东的争端需要决心和能顾及各方面的意愿。他呼吁能抑制该地区至今使各方四分五裂的宗教冲动。不过他又表示，宗教“在寻求和平的进程中，也可以起到建设性的作用。”

阿赫蒂萨里强调：“我们必须坚定决心。如果我们放眼未来，不妨展望一下：假如中东地区各国能齐心协力，全力挖掘其经济潜力、加强交通联系、充分发挥人口的高文化素质，利用三大洲交叉路口的区位条件优越，开始收获成果，那时全世界变化该是多美好呀！”

（2008年12月10日文章发表于《纽约时报》 作者：沃尔特•吉布斯 翻译：晓光）