WASHINGTON - Just nine months after making history as America’s first black President, Barack Obama Friday won the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” A beaming Obama said he was honoured, but wasn’t sure he had done enough to earn it.

The Nobel Committee’s stunning announcement in Oslo took the people from New Delhi to Norway to the White House itself by surprise. The president was woken up with the news by his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs shortly before 6 a.m.

Hours later appearing in the Rose Garden Friday, Obama said he was “both surprised and deeply humbled” to win the award.

He said he does not “view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments”, but rather as a recognition of goals he has set for the United States and the world.

Obama said, “I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honoured by this prize.”

The award cited in particular Obama’s effort to reduce the world’s nuclear arsenal. “He has created a new international climate,” the committee said.

The decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise. The president had not been mentioned as among front-runners for the prize, and the roomful of reporters gasped when Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, uttered Obama’s name, a CNN report from Oslo said The Nobel committee recognized Obama’s efforts to solve complex global problems including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

“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,” the committee said. Jagland said the decision was “unanimous” and came with ease.

He rejected the notion that Obama had been recognized prematurely for his efforts and said the committee wanted to promote the president just it had Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union.

“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population,” it said.

From New Delhi Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conveyed his “heartiest congratulations” to Obama praising his “inclusive approach to problem solving and primacy to dialogue as an instrument of policy” and said he looked forward to working with the US president “to advance the goals of a more secure, equitable and just world.”

Obama’s recognition comes less than a year after he became the first African-American to win the White House. He is the fourth US president to win the prestigious prize and the third sitting president to do so.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the award saying the United States leader’s commitment to work through the United Nations “gives the world’s people fresh hope and fresh prospects.”

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said he could not think of anyone more deserving of the honour.

“In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.