Martti Ahtisaari, Former Finnish President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dies at 86

Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland and global peace broker awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 for his work to resolve international conflicts, died Monday. He was 86.

The foundation he created for preventing and resolving violent conflicts said he died Monday. Its statement said the foundation was “deeply saddened by the loss of its founder and chair of board.”

In 2021, it was announced that Ahtisaari had advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

Among his most notable achievements, Ahtisaari helped reach peace accords related to Serbia’s withdrawal from Kosovo in the late 1990s, Namibia’s bid for independence in the 1980s, and autonomy for Aceh province in Indonesia in 2005. He was also involved with the Northern Ireland peace process in the late 1990s, being tasked with monitoring terrorist group IRA’s disarmament process.

When the Norwegian Nobel Peace Committee picked Ahtisaari in October 2008, it cited him “for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.”

Ahtisaari who was the Nordic country’s president for one six-year term — 1994 until 2000 — later founded the Helsinki-based Crisis Management Initiative, aimed at preventing and resolving violent conflicts through informal dialogue and mediation.
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