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Members of a chemical weapons investigation team with blue helmets speak with Syrian rebels in Damascus’ countryside of Zamalka, . (Inset) Ahmet Uzumcu, Director General of the OPCW, comments on the organization being awarded the , during a press conference in yesterday. — AP Chemical watchdog in Syria wins Peace Weapons experts carry out work in dangerous, hazardous situation

OSLO: The global chemical weapons watchdog are demanding that others do the same, like Syria”. award marks a return to the disarmament roots of tially we work for peace. Not just for peace, we work working to eliminate chemical arms stockpiles “We now have the opportunity to get rid of an the prize after some recent awards including the to strengthen humanitarian norms.” The Hague- around the battlefields of Syria’s civil war won the entire category of weapons of mass last year and US President Barack based OPCW was set up in 1997 to implement a 2013 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday. The Organization destruction...That would be a great event in history if Obama in 2009. Those awards led to criticism that 1992 global Chemical Weapons Convention to ban- for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a we could achieve that,” he said. Pakistani teenager the committee was out of line with the spirit of the ish chemical arms and most recently helped destroy relatively small organization with a modest budget, , shot in the head a year ago by the prize, founded by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, stockpiles in Iraq and Libya. It has about 500 staff dispatched experts to Syria after a sarin gas attack Taleban, had been the bookmakers’ favorite to win the inventor of dynamite. and an annual budget under $100 million. killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus in the prize for her campaign for girls’ right to educa- His 1895 will says the prize should go to one of The United States and Russia had committed to August. tion. The OPCW Syria mission was unprecedented in three causes - “fraternity between nations”, the abo- destroying their arsenals by 2012 but have as yet Their deployment under a UN mandate helped taking place in the heat of a civil war that has riven lition or reduction of standing armies, and the for- failed to do so. OPCW head Uzumcu told ’s avert a US strike against President Bashar Al-Assad the country and killed more than 100,000 people. mation and spreading of peace congresses. NRK television: “I am sure...(the prize) will give and marked an unusual step into the limelight for a Members of the Hague-based OPCW team them- The process of destroying chemical weapons can encouragement to our staff to demonstrate more group more used to working behind the scenes selves came under sniper fire on Aug. 26. While the be hazardous and is costly. The chemicals can be what they could do in terms of contributions to overseeing the destruction of chemical weapons inspection and destruction of chemical weapons burnt, but with care not to disperse poisonous tox- global peace and security.” He said 80 percent of worldwide. continues, with a team of 27 in the field, Assad ins, or chemically neutralized. UN head Ban Ki-moon stockpiles under the oversight of the OPCW, exclud- “We were aware that our work silently but surely forces and rebels clash across the country using con- said this week the weapons would be “dangerous to ing Syria, had already been disposed of. “Still, 20 per- was contributing to peace in the world,” OPCW head ventional weapons. Human Rights Watch said this handle, dangerous to transport and dangerous to cent will have to be destroyed,” he said. Chemical Ahmet Uzumcu said. “The last few weeks have week rebels had killed at least 190 civilians in Latakia destroy”. weapons can inflict considerable suffering and brought this to the fore. The entire international province in August. “Chemical weapons are horrible things and they death, with choking, chemical burns and convul- community has been made aware of our work.” Yesterday, government forces were trying to must never be used and that contributes not just to sions, and can be dispersed easily by winds making Nobel Peace Prize committee head Thorbjoern regain control of an area around Safira, about 20km disarmament, but to strengthening the humanity civilian populations vulnerable. They were widely Jagland said the award was a reminder to nations southeast of Aleppo. The town, controlled by rebels within us,” Malik Ellahi, political adviser to the OPCW used in World War One. More recently, in 1998, such as the United States and Russia to eliminate including the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, is director general, told Reuters. 5,000 people were gassed to death by Iraqi leader their own large stockpiles, “especially because they close to a major suspected chemical site. Yesterday’s “It has always been our position, that quintessen- Saddam Hussein in the town of Halabja. —Reuters