Syria chemical weapons monitors win Nobel Peace Prize
QuestCinq.com/News
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal, has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Nobel Committee said it was in honour of the OPCW’s “extensive work to eliminate chemical weapons”.
The OPCW, based in The Hague, was established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
OPCW director general Ahmet Uzumcu said the award was a “great honour” and would spur it on in its work.
He said the deployment of chemical weapons in Syria had been a “tragic reminder that there remains much work to be done”.
The OPCW recently sent inspectors to oversee the dismantling of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons.
It is the first time OPCW inspectors have worked in an active war zone.
The watchdog picks up a gold medal and 8m Swedish kronor ($1.25m; £780,000) as winner of the most coveted of the Nobel honours.
Analysis
Paul Adams BBC World Affairs Correspondent
The OPCW has been working to rid the world of chemical weapons for the past 16 years. For the most part, this task has been laborious and unheralded.
A staff of about 500, working from its headquarters at The Hague, is charged with making sure that the 189 signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention are abiding by its terms.
But it is only in recent weeks, following the use of chemical weapons in Syria, that the OPCW has become a household name.
It is facing its biggest challenge ever – to verify and destroy Syria’s entire chemical weapons programme by the middle of next year. The Nobel committee clearly feels it needs all the support it can get.
It is not uncommon for organisations to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It has happened 24 times since 1901. Non-proliferation has been an occasional theme, with campaigners for nuclear disarmament and against land mines among those recognised.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised the award, saying the OPCW had “greatly strengthened the rule of law in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation”….read more
Source:BBC
