Arafat, Rabin and Peres Awarded U.N. Prize for Peace
The leaders of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on Friday won the first of an expected string of international prizes for their landmark peace agreement.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awarded its annual Felix Houphouet-Boigny peace prize to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.
It came just four days after Israel and the PLO signed an accord on Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho at a ceremony in Washington, raising the prospect of ending decades of Arab-Israeli bloodshed in the Middle East.
The prize, worth $143,000, is named after the president of Ivory Coast.
The Israeli and PLO leaders may be too late to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, to be announced in Oslo on Oct. 15.
Officials said the deadline for nominations for the 1993 prize closed Feb. 1.
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