Martti Ahtisaari

Martti Ahtisaari
Ahtisaari in 1994
10th President of Finland
In office 1 March 1994 – 1 March 2000
Prime Minister	Esko Aho Paavo Lipponen
Preceded by	Mauno Koivisto
Succeeded by	Tarja Halonen
Ambassador of Finland to Tanzania
In office 1973–1977
Preceded by	Seppo Pietinen
Succeeded by	Richard Müller
Personal details
Born	(1937-06-23)23 June 1937 Viipuri, Finland (now Vyborg, Russia)
Died	16 October 2023(2023-10-16) (aged 86) Helsinki, Finland
Political party	Social Democratic
Spouse	Eeva Hyvärinen ​ (m. 1968)​
Children	Marko
Alma mater	University of Oulu
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize (2008)
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	Finnish Army
Rank	Captain

Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (Finnish: [ˈmɑrtːi ˈʔoi̯ʋɑ ˈkɑleʋi ˈʔɑhtisɑːri] ^ⓘ; 23 June 1937 – 16 October 2023) was a Finnish politician, the tenth president of Finland, from 1994 to 2000, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and a United Nations diplomat and mediator noted for his international peace work.

Ahtisaari was a United Nations special envoy for Kosovo, charged with organizing the Kosovo status process negotiations. These negotiations aimed to resolve a long-running dispute in Kosovo, which later declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. In October 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts".^[1] The Nobel statement said that Ahtisaari had played a prominent role in resolving serious and long-lasting conflicts, including ones in Namibia, Aceh (Indonesia),^[2] Kosovo and Serbia, and Iraq.^[3]