

Norway's Nobel Committee awarded the 2013 Peace Prize to the chemical-weapons watchdog that gained new prominence with its recent mandate to oversee the destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal in the midst of a civil war.

The Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was recognized by the committee for its efforts to eliminate chemical weapons and for its potential role as "an instrument for solving the Syrian crisis."

Ahmet Üzümcü, the director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, speaks at a press conference in The Hague on Friday. Zuma Press

The Nobel Committee appeared eager to head off criticism that it was making a symbolic show of support for an embattled player that hasn't proved its peacemaking ability in the Syrian crisis.

Committee Chairman Thorbjørn Jagland said the OPCW's work was directly in line with the will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who established the Nobel Prizes shortly before he died in 1896.

He said the OPCW had emerged as a candidate in April, before being drawn into the Syria situation, "so this is not a consequence of the recent use of chemical weapons in Syria."

The OPCW, established in 1997 following the Chemical Weapons Convention, has conducted thousands of inspections in dozens of countries, compiling an inventory of declared chemical weapons and verifying which stockpiles have been destroyed.

The OPCW's work in Syria, where it is carrying out a U.S.-Russian plan endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, takes its mandate to a new level in a climate where success hinges on factors well beyond the group's control.

OPCW head Ahmet Uzumcu said on Wednesday that the group's ability to meet the timeline for its work in Syria depended on the security situation, calling for temporary cease-fires to make the work possible. Fighting raged this week around at least one major chemical weapons facility, near the city of Aleppo.

Mr. Uzumcu said the prize should encourage countries to move ahead with promises to annihilate chemical weapons.

The Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday for "extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons." Photo: AP

Nobel Prize Winners

Read more about the 2013 laureates.

He also said the award could change at least one thing on the ground in Syria. "It will also boost the morale of staff who are working in very challenging conditions," he said.

The award comes as Syrian rebel groups appear determined to deny the government of President Bashar al-Assad any opportunity to regain legitimacy through the process of dismantling chemical weapons.

Some Syrian rebels and activists expressed skepticism and disappointment about the award, saying it was premature and the war was still raging.

"They won it for saving us from death?" said an activist in Aleppo, adding that Mr. Asaad's tactics reach far beyond chemical weapons. "They are using planes, trash cans filled with TNT, mortar fire and tanks. We're still being killed."

Syrian opposition figure Michel Kilo said the weapons inspectors were deserving, but said they should also be wary about trusting the Assad regime's declarations about its stockpiles.

"They have to be very careful. The regime certainly has hidden chemical weapons in undisclosed locations such as homes, small-weapons depots and even within small weapons being carried by army units," he said.

Syria's formal declaration of the details of its chemical-weapons arsenal is due by Oct. 27.

Mr. Jagland's Nobel Committee had come under fire following the appointments of several recent Peace Prize winners, including the European Union in 2012 and President Barack Obama in 2009.

Mr. Jagland, in a news conference in Oslo on Friday, appeared particularly sensitive to criticism of the 2009 award to Mr. Obama, praising the president's arms-control efforts.

A screen grab from Syrian television on Oct. 8 claims to show an inspector of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons working at an undisclosed place in Syria. EPA

With regard to the OPCW, he said: "The committee has from time to time returned to the theme of disarmament….We want to put a spotlight on the fact that we may be able to get rid of an entire category of weapons, but there is still work to be done."

Still, the committee made an unexpected pick. Malala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old education advocate in Pakistan who was shot by the Pakistani Taliban a year ago, had emerged as a popular favorite in the days leading up to the award. European lawmakers awarded Ms. Yousafzai their top human-rights award, the Sakharov Prize, on Thursday.

The OPCW's campaign in Syria was set out in a U.S.-Russian agreement following an Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus that the U.S. said killed more than 1,400 people. At the time, U.N. weapons inspectors were already in the Syrian capital preparing to investigate claims of earlier attacks.

The Norwegian Effect

Some past Peace Prizes

1964 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Award for civil-rights struggle is followed by passage of Voting Rights Act of 1965.

1983 Lech Walesa for his struggle in Communist Poland. Walesa won Poland's first direct elections in 1990.

1991 Aung San Suu Kyi. It took more than two decades until the Burmese activist was free to collect prize in person.

1994 Israeli and Palestinian leaders. The Mideast conflict remains unresolved.

1996 For East Timor leaders against Indonesian occupation, which ends in 1999; statehood follows in 2002.

2000 South Korean President Kim Dae-jung for pursuing reconciliation with North Korea. His 'Sunshine' policy was abandoned by his successors.

Chemical weapons, including mustard gas, were first widely used in World War I, causing 90,000 deaths and more than 1 million casualties. Lethal chemicals were also in the Nazi program of racial extermination in World War II.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union maintained large stockpiles, but they were never used. Chemical armaments have been sporadically deployed since then, including by Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

The 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawed the use of these weapons but not their possession. That was superseded by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which requires signatories to destroy their chemical stockpiles. The OPCW was established as the body that implements the Convention.

A handful of countries have refused to sign the Convention, including Syria until the U.S.-Russian agreement was reached last month.

The OPCW says it has overseen the elimination of 82% of the world's declared stockpile of chemicals weapons so far, or 58,172 tons. It has also supervised the destruction of nearly 4.97 million munitions and containers.

Mr. Jagland noted that the U.S. and Russia haven't finished destroying their own chemical arsenals. "This is a reminder to those signatories of the convention that have the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons that they should speed up the work of getting rid of chemical weapons—especially as they are demanding that of others, for example Syria," he said.

U.S. officials said it would take another decade for them to finish destroying their chemical armaments, citing the dangers of the disposal process and the concerns of local communities that the work be done safely.

The State Department said the job of destroying U.S. and Russian chemical-weapons stockpiles is a "lengthy process."

"We and the Russians have both worked very hard together to destroy our existing stockpiles," said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. "I think it's just a process that that we worked with the Russians on, and it takes time."

—Maarten van Tartwijk and James Marson contributed to this article.

Write to Naftali Bendavid at, Kjetil Malkenes Hovland at and Rima Abushakra at