Finland celebrates Ahtisaari's Nobel Peace Prize

By Azer Sawiris and Agnieszka Flak

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finns celebrated the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to former president Martti Ahtisaari on Friday, seeing it as an honor for the country as a whole.

"We have been waiting for a long time for this. He really deserved it. He has worked for a long time on solving problems of different groups, that's what he is really good at," said Helsinki resident Leni Tornqvist.

"He knows how to negotiate with other people, that's his speciality," added Tornqvist.

Ahtisaari, 71, Finland's president from 1994 to 2000, has for years been a favorite to win what many deem the world's top accolade.

"This is a historic day for Finland. Today all of us, each and every Finn, are surely proud and happy for President Ahtisaari," Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee hailed Ahtisaari's more than three decades of peacemaking around the globe from Namibia to Northern Ireland.

In 2005, he mediated peace between Indonesia and rebels in Aceh province to end 30 years of fighting and was architect of a European Union-backed plan for Kosovo's independence.

Risto Penttila, director of Finnish policy think tank EVA, said Ahtisaari was a transitional president for the country -- which joined the European Union during his term.

"He was the president when the country was opening up to the world and the Finnish European identity was getting into shape," Penttila said.

Current President Tarja Halonen and the opposition Social Democrat party leader Jutta Urpilainen congratulated Ahtisaari.

"President Ahtisaari is truly a great man of peace," Urpilainen said in a statement.

(Reporting by Azer Sawiris; editing by Keith Weir)