CNN –
Ambassadors from Russia and Belarus have been invited back to the Nobel Prize banquet after being excluded last year over the invasion of Ukraine, the Nobel Foundation said.
Iran was also invited to the December event in the Swedish capital of Stockholm after not being present last year.
The foundation said it also wants to include those who don’t share the Nobel Prize’s values.
“It is clear that the world is increasingly divided into spheres in which dialogue between people with different views is limited,” Vidar Helgesen, executive director of the Nobel Foundation, said in a statement on Thursday.
“To counteract this tendency, we are now extending our invitations to celebrate and understand the Nobel Prize and the importance of free science, free culture and free, peaceful societies,” Helgesen said.
Russians and Belarusians have been barred from countless events since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, heavily backed by Minsk.
Athletes from Russia and Belarus have been banned from taking part in numerous sporting events, and diplomats are regularly excluded from summit meetings.
However, the foundation said its decision was made to prevent further “polarization”.
“The achievements recognized by the Nobel Prize require openness, exchange and dialogue between people and nations. The Nobel Foundation wants to reach out to everyone with this message,” it said in a statement.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he did not expect the foundation to invite Russia to this year’s event.
“Of course, the Nobel Foundation decides for itself who to invite. But I, like many others, reacted with great surprise that Russia was invited,” Kristersson said in a statement sent to CNN on Friday.
“I wouldn’t have done it if I had invited people to an awards ceremony and I understand that this upsets a lot of people in both Sweden and Ukraine,” he added.
A Swedish MEP called the decision “extremely inappropriate”.
“The Nobel Committee is helping to set a precedent, a very dangerous precedent, by giving the green light to invite Russia to a glamorous party while missiles are hitting Ukrainian cultural centers and murdering children,” Swedish liberal MEP Karin Karlsbro told reporters the Swedish national radio.
Karlsbro asked why the foundation had invited “three rogue states … that oppress their citizens, wage war and terror both in their own country and in neighboring countries” and “in no way represent democratic values.”
“This is an incredibly naive view and it undermines the cohesion we need across society around the world and in Europe to help Ukraine win this war and stop Putin,” she said.
The Nobel Foundation also reversed its longstanding policy of expelling the leader of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party that is part of the country’s coalition government.
But despite being invited for the first time, Jimmie Akesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, declined the invitation.
“Sorry, I’m busy that day,” he wrote on Facebook.
The Nobel Banquet takes place annually on December 10th in Stockholm, where five out of six Nobel Prizes are awarded. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway.