Ethiopian leader wins Nobel Peace Prize

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the prize today for his work in restarting peace talks with neighboring Eritrea.

The two countries share deep ethnic and cultural ties, but until last year they had been locked in a two-decade conflict that included the deaths of more than 80,000 people during two years of border violence.

The two countries have been slowly reconnecting since a peace deal was signed by Mr. Abiy, 43, and President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea in July 2018, an effort that has been held up as an example of change even in a longstanding and intractable conflict.

Go deeper: Read our profile of Mr. Abiy from September 2018.

Related: A year after a scandal that postponed the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the selection of one of the two winners on Thursday prompted a backlash. Peter Handke, a writer from Austria, has espoused nationalist views and spoke at the funeral of Slobodan Milosevic, the former leader of Yugoslavia who was tried for war crimes.