Citizens protest against Syria's use of chemical weapons.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is overseeing the destruction's of Syria's arsenal, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
Experts from the Hague-based global chemical weapons watchdog, supported by the United Nations, are working to destroy Syria's massive chemical weapons stockpile after a sarin gas strike in the suburbs of Damascus killed more than 1 400 people in August.
The $1.25-million prize will be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, which has a strong track record leaking the names of winners, reported the OPCW's victory more than an hour before the official announcement.
The OPCW, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, has about 500 staff and an annual budget of under $100-million.
Render useless
The OPCW, which has 189 member states, said Syria was co-operating and it could eliminate its chemical weapons by mid-2014, provided they received support from all sides in its civil war.
Chemical weapons experts believe Syria has roughly 1 000 tonnes of sarin, mustard and VX nerve gas, some of it stored as bulk raw chemicals and some of it already loaded onto missiles, warheads or rockets.
Under a Russian-US deal struck last month, Syria must render useless all production facilities and weapons-filling equipment by November, a process begun over the past several weeks.– Reuters