Nobel highlights Syria with Peace Prize to chemical weapons watchdog
The Nobel Peace Prize has turned the global spotlight back on the conflict in Syria.
The prize committee in
Oslo, Norway, awarded it Friday to the international chemical weapons
watchdog helping to eliminate the Syrian army's stockpiles of poison
gas, The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Its inspectors have just
begun with that work in the active war zone, and the Norwegian Nobel
Committee awarded them as they face arduous and life-threatening tasks.
But the OPCW did not
receive the prize primarily because of its work in Syria, committee
chairperson Thorbjorn Jagland said. "It is because of its long-standing
efforts to eliminate chemical weapons and that we are now about to reach
the goal and do away with a whole category of weapons of mass
destruction. That would be a great event in history, if we can acheive
that."
The Nobel committee could
not reach the OPCW to inform it of the win. In posts to Twitter, it
requested the chemical watchdog group get in touch with it.
Protocol requires those
awarding any Nobel prize not to inform recipients ahead of the prize
announcement but instead to get in touch with them parallel to informing
the public.
Team in Syria
An team from the OPCW and the U.N. has been in Syria since October 1, and oversaw the first destruction of chemical weapons equipment this week.
On Sunday, Syrian
personnel used "cutting torches and angle grinders to destroy or disable
a range of items," the OPCW said. "This included missile warheads,
aerial bombs and mixing and filling equipment."
Given the danger the
inspectors face, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon this week described
the joint OPCW-U.N. mission in Syria as "an operation the likes of
which, quite simply, have never been tried before."
The joint mission is tasked with eliminating all chemical weapons in the country by midyear 2014.
Ban has set out the
three phases of the mission: Establishing an initial presence and
verifying the Syrian government's declaration of its stockpiles;
overseeing the destruction of chemical weapons; and verification of the
destruction of any and all chemical weapons-related programs or
materials.
Currently the team is in
Syria is comprised of 35 members, but the OPCW is preparing to deploy a
second team to strengthen the effort. They plan to grow the team to
100.
The government in Damascus has been cooperative so far, and there is hope they will reach their goal.
"These developments
present a constructive beginning for what will nonetheless be a long and
difficult process," OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said.
Chemical weapons attack
On August 21 a chemical
attack outside Damascus led the United States and its allies to calls
for military intervention in Syria's civil war -- a confrontation that
was defused in mid-September, when Damascus agreed to a U.S.-Russian
plan to give up its chemical weapons stockpile.
A U.N. Security Council
resolution gives Syria until mid-2014 to destroy that arsenal, which the
United States estimated at about 1,000 tons of blister agents and nerve
gas. The Syrians provided an initial declaration of its stockpile and
must submit a plan for destroying the weapons by October 27, Uzumcu
said.
Nobel justification
The award to the OPCW
was intended in part as a message to countries still harboring chemical
weapons to get rid of them, Jagland said.
In awarding the prize,
the Norwegian committee highlighted the widespread use of chemical
weapons in World War I and efforts to stop it since.
In 1925, the Geneva
Convention prohibited their use. But during World War II, the Nazi
dictatorship under Adolf Hitler employed them to extinguish the lives of
millions of concentration camp inmates in the Holocaust.
The Geneva Convention
left some loopholes open, though, the Norwegian committee said. It does
not prohibit the production and storage of chemical weapons.
That changed in the 1997, when an international convention banning that as well, was instituted.
About the OPCW
The Organisation for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague, in the
Netherlands, is the independent implementing body for the Chemical
Weapons Convention, an international arms control treaty.
The Chemical Weapons
Convention entered into force in April 1997, at which point 87 states
had ratified it -- and the work of the OPCW to implement its provisions
began at that point.
According to the
treaty's wording, signatories are "determined for the sake of all
mankind, to exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical
weapons, through the implementation of the provisions of this
Convention."
Sixteen years later,
more than 100 additional states have ratified the treaty. In September,
Syria became the latest nation to ask to join the convention. It is due
to enter into force in Syria on October 14, when it will become the
190th member state.
Peace Prize background
Last year, the Norwegian
committee awarded the peace prize to the European Union as it grappled
with the worst crisis since its founding -- devastating debt and the
threat of disintegration.
The award was a salute
to the struggling 27-nation union for its work in promoting democracy
and reconciliation since World War II.
It is common for the Nobel Peace Prize to go to organizations.
Other large
organizations that have won it include the United Nations, Doctors
Without Borders, U.N. peacekeeping forces, the U.N. atomic energy
agency, the Red Cross and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
The Peace Prize is the
fifth Nobel Prize to be awarded this week, preceded by honors in
medicine, physics, chemistry and literature.
On Monday, the final Nobel Prize will be awarded in the field of economics.
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