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Controversial Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2016 for his "vigorous" ideology that counters radical Islam as a weapon of deterrence, according to media reports.
The 'unlikely' nomination of the 69-year-old hard-liner for the coveted peace prize highlights the vulnerability of the award --hat it is easily misused as a publicity tool for politician whose goals would seem to many as antithetical to the Nobel committee's.
According to the information available on the Nobel Prize website: "A nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize may be submitted by any person who meets the nomination criteria. A letter of invitation to submit is not required. The names of the nominees and other information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later."
Nominations for the award, that had a submission deadline of February 1, are a closely-guarded secret but those who nominate candidates can reveal the name of the person they have proposed, reports said.
An American male senator or congressman nominated Trump -- the real estate tycoon who is currently the Republican presidential frontrunner, according to Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of Oslo's Peace Research Institute.
Harpviken told the Telegraph that he had seen the letter, which described Trump's "vigorous peace-through-strength ideology" as an effective "threat weapon of deterrence against radical Islam, Islamic State, nuclear Iran and Communist China".
Trump was criticised globally over a call for banning all Muslims from entering the US but refused to budge from his stance. The stunning provocative remarks made by him in December were not only condemned by the rival camp but party members as well.
Harpviken said that whoever nominated Trump probably did it to secure more press coverage for the controversial candidate.
"The person who suggested it may genuinely mean it, but the person who suggested it may also realise that the very fact that Trump's nomination gets confirmed has considerable interest in its own right, and that all publicity is good publicity.
"The fact that you're asking me about his nomination indicates that, if that was the thinking, it worked," he said. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 129 Nobel
Laureates since 1901 including India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistani Malala Yousafzai for advocating child rights.
The 2016 winner will be announced in October -- just one month before the US presidential election.
However, Trump -- who was on Wednesday slammed by party rival Ted Cruz as "twitterer in chief" for taking political slandering to new heights even on social media -- has not tweeted anything about the nomination so far.