Chemical weapons watchdog wins Nobel Peace Prize for Syrian mission
The global
chemical weapons watchdog working to eliminate chemical arms stockpiles around
the battlefields of Syria's civil war won the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a relatively
small organisation with a modest budget, dispatched experts to Syria after a
sarin gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus in August. Their
deployment under a U.N. mandate helped avert a U.S. strike against President
Bashar al-Assad and marked an unusual step into the limelight for a group more
used to working behind the scenes overseeing the destruction of chemical
weapons worldwide. Nobel Peace Prize committee head Thorbjoern Jagland said the
award was a reminder to nations such as the United States and Russia to
eliminate their own large stockpiles, "especially because they are
demanding that others do the same, like Syria".
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