US President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts" to strengthen international diplomacy. The stunning choice left the world divided whether the honour came too early for him as he has completed only nine months as President of the US.<br/>Hours after the Norwegian Nobel Committee made the sensational announcement; a beaming 48 year old Obama accepted the honour but acknowledged he was "both surprised and deeply humbled." Appearing in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he does not "view it as recognition of my own accomplishments" but rather as recognition of goals he has set for the United States and the world.<br/>The Norwegian Nobel Committe said "only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."<br/>The Stockholm-based Committee said it attaches special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons. The first Afro-American President of the US is the third incumbent after Theodore Rossevelt and Woodrow Wilson to win the peace prize. Former President Jimmy Carter won the prize after his term in the White House.<br/>Former Polish President Lech Waleza and a Nobel peace prize winner was among the major leaders who said the honour has come too fast.<br/>But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon came out strongly in support of the Nobel Peace Prize for Obama and termed the Norwegian Committee's decision "a very wise" one.<br/>The President Mrs Pratibha Devi Singh Patil, the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and the UPA Chairperson Mrs Sonia Gandhi have congratulated Mr Obama for winning the Nobel peace prize.<br/>Meanwhile, the White House has said that the US President will accept the prize in person. The award is due to be presented in Oslo on December 10.