Martti Ahtisaari Quotes

Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari is a Finnish politician, the tenth President of Finland , a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and a United Nations diplomat and mediator noted for his international peace work.

Ahtisaari was a United Nations special envoy for Kosovo, charged with organizing the Kosovo status process negotiations, aimed at resolving a long-running dispute in Kosovo, which later declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. In October 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts". The Nobel statement said that Ahtisaari has played a prominent role in resolving serious and long-lasting conflicts, including ones in Namibia, Aceh , Kosovo, and Iraq. Wikipedia  

✵ 23. June 1937
Martti Ahtisaari photo
Martti Ahtisaari: 6   quotes 2   likes

Famous Martti Ahtisaari Quotes

“You have to be rather straightforward with your clients. You can't tell the parties only nice things.”

On working in peace negotiations, as quoted in "Nobel Peace Prize winner wants jobs for the young" in International Herald Tribune (11 October 2008)
Context: You have to be rather straightforward with your clients. You can't tell the parties only nice things. This is not an entertainment show; it's not reality television either.

“Since I know that about a million people have been killed by the government of Iraq, I do not need much those weapons of mass destruction.”

Defending the US government decision to invade Iraq, as quoted in "Nobel Finn" in Wall Street Journal (11 October 2008) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367870922824537.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

“I think it's a disgrace for the international community that we have allowed so many conflicts to become frozen, and we are not making a serious effort to solve them.”

Telephone interview with Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org (10 October 2008) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2008/ahtisaari-telephone.html

“It's very important to be able to act properly. You need financing, and you never have enough.”

On his plans to use the Nobel Prize money to help fund peace organisations he has worked with, quoted in "Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize" in BBC News (10 October 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7662922.stm

“During the next 10 years about 1.2 billion young 15-to-30-year-olds will be entering the job market and with the means now at our disposal about 300 million will get a job. What will we offer these young, about a billion of them?”

or will we leave them to be recruited by criminal leagues and terrorists? … I think this is one of the greatest challenges if we want to achieve peaceful development and hope for these young.
Interview with Finnish YLE TV, quoted in "Nobel Peace Prize winner wants jobs for the young" in International Herald Tribune (11 October 2008) http://web.archive.org/web/20081012063102/http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/11/europe/EU-Finland-Nobel-Peace.php

Similar authors

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva photo
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 10
Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil
Les Brown photo
Les Brown 24
American politician
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk photo
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk 9
First Czechoslovak president
Vladimir Putin photo
Vladimir Putin 110
President of Russia, former Prime Minister
Dilma Rousseff photo
Dilma Rousseff 13
36th President of Brazil
Fidel Castro photo
Fidel Castro 77
former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President…
Václav Klaus photo
Václav Klaus 3
2nd President of the Czech Republic
Jair Bolsonaro photo
Jair Bolsonaro 118
Brazilian president elect
Golda Meir photo
Golda Meir 38
former prime minister of Israel
Ronald Reagan photo
Ronald Reagan 264
American politician, 40th president of the United States (i…