Henry Kissinger On Donald Trump: Give Republican A Chance, Former Diplomat Says During Nobel Peace Prize Speech In Oslo

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says people should judge Donald Trump on his policies, not his rhetoric, and stop predicting crisis is inevitable.

Kissinger, at the Nobel Peace Prize forum at the University of Oslo in Norway, Sunday, said the president-elect’s personality is a first in American politics and the incoming administration should be given the chance “to put forward its vision of international order.”

“No doubt, the president-elect is a personality for whom there is no precedent in modern American history. And his campaign included rhetorical elements challenging patterns considered traditional,” said Kissinger, who shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Le Duc Tho for negotiating the Paris Peace Accords.

“The international debate should be over evolving American policy, not over campaign rhetoric. But the overriding quest for peace and stability has dominated every American presidential administration I have studied and known.”

Several professors called Kissinger’s appearance “distasteful.”

“I think it’s important to open the University of Oslo for all types of voices, but Henry Kissinger is behind many questionable events both in Latin America and, not least, Indochina, that indirectly have cost many thousands of lives,” Benedicte Bull, a professor at the University of Oslo, told Uniforum.

Kissinger’s arrival at the forum was marked by demonstrations, with protesters calling for him to be prosecuted as a war criminal. Kissinger, 93, served as secretary of state for both U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Demonstrators said he was indirectly responsible for mass murders in Latin America, bombings of civilians in Vietnam and the ouster of Chilean President Salvador Allende.

Kissinger warned worsening relations between the United States and China, a breakdown in ties between the West and Russia, weakening of Europe’s strategic importance and worsening conflicts in the Middle East could lead to wider conflicts.

Trump already has created a diplomatic kerfuffle with China by accepting a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president. He also has questioned the One China policy, which has guided U.S.-Sino relations since 1979, and railed against the proliferation of Chinese imports.

Kissinger has been trying to defuse the situation, engaging in closed-door talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump is a longtime China foe. In 2013, he tweeted China is not an ally.

In 2012, he said China would never go to war with the U.S. because Beijing already owns the country.

In 2011, he urged Americans to wake up.

Trump has expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and questioned the necessity of NATO. His remarks on Muslims have angered Middle Eastern officials.