Tehran  - Tehran said Friday that the Nobel Peace Prize for US President Barack Obama was "premature," Mehr news agency reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told Mehr that the decision made in Norway was "hasty" and for Obama "premature."

"The right timing for this prize would have been when the (US) forces had left Afghanistan and Iraq and stood besides the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation," Mottaki said.

"But if this prize was an encouraging motivation for defying war-mongering and unilateral policies and instead supporting peace based on justice, we would have nothing against it,"  dpa