Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons wins 2013 Nobel Peace Prize

MOSCOW — the tiny Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was still obtaining accustomed its unaccustomed role at the middle of international affairs, overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, once it won the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize on Fri.

“The news of the Nobel Peace Prize was very overwhelming,” aforementioned Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of The Hague-based agency. “I see it as an excellent acknowledgement of a hit story.”



Until minutes before the Norwegian award Committee discovered its selection in Oslo, speculation had focused on Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani lady United Nations agency was shot within the head by the Taliban a year past for defensive education for women. however even as it did last year once it designated the eu Union,the committee took the globe abruptly.

“We square measure currently in an exceedingly state of affairs during which we are able to do away with a full class of weapons of mass destruction,” Thorbjorn Jagland, the committee’s chairman, said. “Of course this is often a awfully vital message.”

On Aug. 21, a GB gas attack in Syrian Arab Republic killed over one,000 civilians, a reminder to the globe of the horror chemical weapons visit on their victims. associate calculable one hundred,000 folks have died within the twenty one / 2-year conflict.

OPCW inspectors were in Syrian Arab Republic as a part of a U.N. team at the time of the August chemical attack and afterward investigated it, despite returning below sharpshooter hearth at one purpose. The team later created a wide acclaimed report that documented the utilization of GB within the attack which indirectly involved the Syrian government.

OPCW inspectors came to Syrian Arab Republic at the start of Oct. concerning large integer inspectors square measure there, {attempting|trying|making associate attempt} to seek out and supervise the destruction of an calculable one,000 a lot of chemical weapons — within the middle of a war, among unarmed U.N. guards, with security entrusted to a Syrian government that doesn’t management the whole country.

Jagland aforementioned the committee hoped the prize would have implications on the far side the Syrian conflict, together with encouraging signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention like the u.  s. and Russia to improve destruction of their stockpiles.

“The crisis in Syrian Arab Republic highlights the requirement to try and do away with these weapons,” he said. “This is concerning disarming, which works straight to the guts of Alfred the Great Nobel’s can.”

Nobel, the Swedish man of affairs United Nations agency unreal dynamite, left the Nobel prizes as his heritage. The ceremony for this year’s Peace Prize, worth $1.2 million, are going to be prevailed Dec. 10, the day of remembrance of Nobel’s death.

Although the international organization was associate sudden recipient, the choice was wide applauded – outside of Syrian Arab Republic. within the country, the 2 parties to the conflict took differing views, with government supporters seeing it as associate affirmation of President Bashar al-Assad’s commitment to destroying chemical weapons and rebels occupation it untimely.

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, however, counseled the agency’s work since the attack in Syrian Arab Republic.