Tunisian Nobel Prize Winners In Oslo To Receive Prize; Five Quotes From Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

Chairperson of the Norwegian Nobel committee Kaci Kullmann-Five (L to R) speaks during the Peace Prize awarding ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo on 10 December 2015

Ms Kullmann-Five said this year's prize "is truly a prize for peace, awarded against a backdrop of unrest and war".

A ceremony took place today in Norway to present the Tunisian winners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize with their award.

Speaking at the ceremony in Oslo, the leader of the Nobel Committee, Kaci Kullmanm Five, praised the winners - Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet - saying their work had helped the North African country find a way to peace during a time of great unrest.

AFP

Tunisia's uprising was the first and most successful of the Arab Spring.

Earlier, the four peace laureates, holding roses, attended a Save the Children party with Norwegian royalty.

Members of the Quartet with King Harald of Norway (C) at the Royal Palace in Oslo (AFP)

Members of Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet have just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here are five quotes from Nobel Committee head Kaci Kullmann-Five's speech at the award ceremony in Oslo. 

• "In the summer of 2013 Tunisia was on the brink of civil war. The Quartet's resolute intervention helped to halt the spiraling violence and put developments on a peaceful track. Tunisia was spared the horrors of civil war and instead established a constitutional system of government."

• "We hope that the Peace Prize will help to ensure that there is no return to the Tunisia that existed before democracy, before the revolution."

• "If every country had done as Tunisia has done, and paved the way for dialogue, tolerance, democracy and equal rights, far fewer people would have been forced to flee."

• "Tunisia's security challenges are urgent. They are all too familiar to us. They resemble our own. They are our own. In this time of terror, the threats against Tunisia and the Tunisian people are indistinguishable from the threats against other countries."

• "And may the diploma remind us all of our obligation to the millions of children and young people who, while we are gathered here today, feel as if they are groping in the dark, with no hope or faith in the future. May these young people have the blindfold removed from their eyes and see a brighter future, a future in peace and freedom."