Ahmet Uzumcu, right, Director General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons holds the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize in City Hall Oslo Tuesday Dec. 10, 2013. The OPCW received the 2013 Peace Nobel Prize for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons. (AP Photo/Cornelius Poppe / NTB scanpix) NORWAY OUT
December 10, 2013 - 4:37 AM
OSLO - The head of a watchdog group that is trying to rid the world of chemical weapons has received the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital.
Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, collected the award Tuesday on behalf of the group.
Noting the organization's role in leading the mission to destroy Syria's chemical weapons, Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said the "anonymous inspectors from the OPCW do an extremely important and difficult job."
At the start of his speech Jagland paid tribute to the late Nelson Mandela, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk in 1993.
The Nobel awards in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics were set to be presented in Stockholm later Tuesday.
News from © The Associated Press, 2013