Story highlights Nobel committee hopes the award gives "strong support" to OPCW inspectors in Syria

Panel says the prize wasn't for work in Syria, but for work to eliminate all chemical weapons

OPCW inspectors have just begun to work in the active war zone

All chemical weapons in Syria are to be destroyed by mid-2014

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 Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , the international chemical weapons watchdog helping to eliminate the Syrian army's stockpiles of poison gas.

Its inspectors have just begun working in the active war zone, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee said it hopes the award offers "strong support" to 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 chairman 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 achieve that."

Nevertheless, OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said he wants the prize to inspire everyone to reach for peace in Syria.

JUST WATCHED Chemical attack a 'war crime' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Chemical attack a 'war crime' 01:53

JUST WATCHED Weapons inspectors face difficult task Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Weapons inspectors face difficult task 04:40

Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The late Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel left the bulk of his fortune to create the Nobel Prizes to honor work in five areas, including peace. In his 1895 will, he said one part was dedicated to that person "who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." See the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize since it was first awarded in 1901. Hide Caption 1 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, public advocate for the Yazidi community in Iraq and survivor of sexual enslavement by the Islamic State jihadists won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on October 5, 2018 for their work in fighting sexual violence in conflicts around the world. Hide Caption 2 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the International Campaign to Abolition Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of non-governmental organizations in 100 countries dedicated to achieving a prohibition of nuclear weapons. Beatrice Fihn, the organization's chief executive, told reporters that the award of the prize to her organization was "hugely important" in the quest to abolish nuclear weapons. Hide Caption 3 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end Colombia's long-running civil war. Hide Caption 4 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its "decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in the country in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011." From left to right: the Secretary General of the Tunisian General Labour Union Houcine Abbassi, the President of the National Order of Tunisian Lawyers Fadhel Mahfoudh, the Tunisian Human Rights League Abdessatar Ben Moussa and the President of the Tunisian employers union Wided Bouchamaoui. Hide Caption 5 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Malala Yousafzai split the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize with India's Kailash Satyarthi for their struggles against the suppression of children and for young people's rights. Yousafzai came to global attention after she was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for her efforts to promote education for girls in Pakistan. Hide Caption 6 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , speaks after his chemical watchdog group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013. The Hague, Netherlands-based organization received the prize for helping to eliminate the Syrian army's stockpiles of poison gas as well as for its longtime efforts to eliminate chemical weapons. Hide Caption 7 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The European Union won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Hide Caption 8 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, from left, Tawakkol Karman of Yemen and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Hide Caption 9 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Hide Caption 10 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners U.S. President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Hide Caption 11 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. Hide Caption 12 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Hide Caption 13 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Hide Caption 14 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Hide Caption 15 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Wangari Muta Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, Kenya, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Hide Caption 16 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. Hide Caption 17 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Former President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Hide Caption 18 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Former United Nations Secretary General Koffi Annan, center, with French Forces commander Gen. Alain Pellegrini, right, review UNIFIL soldiers upon Annan's arrival to the U.N. peacekeeping base in the southern Lebanese town of Naqura, on August 29, 2006. Annan and the United Nations won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. Hide Caption 19 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Hide Caption 20 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners A flag bearing the logo of Medecins sans Frontieres (also known as Doctors Without Borders) stands in the middle of a makeshift clinic at Kenya's Dadaab refuge on October 16, 2011. Medicins sans Frontieres won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Hide Caption 21 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners David Trimble, left, and John Hume hold up their diplomas and medals after receiving their Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 1998. Trimble and Hume won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998. Hide Caption 22 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Jody Williams sits in front of donated shoes symbolizing landmine victims during Ban Landmines Week on March 8, 2001, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Hide Caption 23 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, left, and Jose Ramos-Horta shake hands at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo on December 9,1996, prior to the awarding ceremony. Belo and Ramos-Horta won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996. Hide Caption 24 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. Hide Caption 25 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat, from left, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin hold up their awards after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. Hide Caption 26 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners South African National Congress President Nelson Mandela, left, and South African President F.W. de Klerk shake hands in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 1993, after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Hide Caption 27 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Rigoberta Menchu campaigns in the Alameda neighborhood of Guatemala City, Guatemala, on November 4, 2011. Menchu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Hide Caption 28 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Hide Caption 29 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Hide Caption 30 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners U.N. soldiers unload their gear from a C-130 cargo plane as the U.N. observer team policing the Iran-Iraq ceasefire arrives in Baghdad. The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. Hide Caption 31 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Costa Rican President-elect Oscar Arias waves to supporters after receiving the ceremonial sash at the National Stadium in San Jose on May 8, 2006. Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. Hide Caption 32 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel appears at a press conference at the United Nations on October 27, 2004 in New York. Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Hide Caption 33 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Members of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War clasp hands on October 11, 1985, at the group's Boston headquarters after the organization was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. The doctors are, from left, Eric Chivian, co-founder; John Pastore, secretary; Sidney Alexander, president of the U.S. affiliate group; and James Muller, co founder. Hide Caption 34 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. Hide Caption 35 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Former Polish President Lech Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. Hide Caption 36 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Alva Myrdal, right, and Alfonso Garcia Robles won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982, having played a central role in the United Nations' disarmament negotiations. Hide Caption 37 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Refugees are registered in Somalia in November 1981. The Nobel Peace Prize that year was awarded to the United Nations' refugee agency, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Hide Caption 38 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who has devoted his life to the struggle for human rights, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980. Hide Caption 39 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Mother Teresa, founder of the Missionaries of Charity order, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Hide Caption 40 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners President Jimmy Carter, center, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin join hands after signing the Camp David Accords. Sadat and Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. Hide Caption 41 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Amnesty International won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977. Hide Caption 42 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, co-founders of the Community for Peace People, share a joke while leading a peace rally of Catholic and Protestant woman in the Protestant Shankill Road, in Belfast, on August 28, 1976. Williams and Corrigan won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. Hide Caption 43 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Hide Caption 44 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, left, and Irish official Sean MacBride shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974. Hide Caption 45 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Hanoi's delegate Le Duc Tho cheers to the crowd while leaving the International Conference Center in Paris on January 23, 1973, after meeting with presidential adviser Henry Kissinger, center. Le Duc Tho and Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Hide Caption 46 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners German Chancellor Willy Brandt poses after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize n Oslo on December 10, 1971. Hide Caption 47 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Dr. Norman Borlaug holds up stalks of his specifically crossbred wheat, designed to be more disease-resistant. Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Hide Caption 48 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The International Labour Organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969. David Morse was the director general of the organization from 1948-70. Hide Caption 49 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Rene Cassin, the French jurist and a deputy chairman of the NATO committee for human rights, holds up a telegram after being notified of winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968. Hide Caption 50 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Children drink milk handed out by UNICEF workers in Moundou, Chad, on October 26, 1965. UNICEF won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. Hide Caption 51 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. displays his Nobel Peace Prize medal in December 1964 in Oslo, Norway. Then 35, King was the youngest man to have received the prize. The U.S. civil rights leader was slain in 1968. Hide Caption 52 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners A group of Red Cross rescue workers hold a capsule used to supply food and beverages to three trapped miners at an iron ore mine near Lengede, Germany, on October 28, 1963. The League of Red Cross Societies won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963. Hide Caption 53 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners American chemist Linus Pauling won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his campaigning for a nuclear test ban treaty. Pauling also won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1954. Hide Caption 54 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish politician and the second U.N. secretary general, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. Hide Caption 55 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners King Olav V of Norway, left, shakes hands with Albert Lutuli, president-general of the African National Congress, after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960 in Oslo. Hide Caption 56 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners British politician Philip Noel-Baker was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959. Hide Caption 57 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Georges Pire, right, receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1958 for his efforts to help European refugees leave their camps and return to a life of freedom and dignity. Hide Caption 58 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Canadian politician Lester Bowles Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his active role in attempting to prevent war. Hide Caption 59 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners North Korean refugees cross the Naktong River in South Korea on August 6, 1950, just a short time before the beginning of the conflict between North and South Korea. The U.N. forces in Korea had set a time limit of 15 hours for crossing the river. In 1954, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the UNHCR, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Hide Caption 60 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Gen. George Catlett Marshall of the U.S. Army won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. Hide Caption 61 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Dr. Albert Schweitzer -- a physician, philosopher and theologian -- won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. Hide Caption 62 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Leon Jouhaux, a French union activist, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951. Hide Caption 63 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Ralph Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for his "unremitting campaign to develop man's ability to live in peace, harmony and mutual understanding with his fellows," according to the Nobel Committee. Hide Caption 64 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Lord John Boyd Orr, a British nutritionist and health campaigner, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949. Hide Caption 65 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners A family begins to assimilate in a new community on August 4, 1941, after being rehabilitated by the American Quakers and the Unitarian service committee, after fleeing with thousands of others from war-torn Lorraine, France, to begin a new life. The Friends Service Council (The Quakers) and the American Friends Service Committee won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. Hide Caption 66 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners John Raleigh Mott, left, and Emily Greene Balch won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946. Mott won for his contributions to the creation of a peace-promoting religious brotherhood across national boundaries. Balch won for unrelenting efforts to fight for peace. Hide Caption 67 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945. Hide Caption 68 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners American Red Cross workers check packages for troops fighting in Leyte, Philippines, on November 20,1944. The International Committee of the Red Cross won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1944. Hide Caption 69 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The Nansen International Office for Refugees won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1938. Hide Caption 70 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Viscount Cecil of Chelwood won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937 for promoting peace at a time of war. Hide Caption 71 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Carlos Saavedra Lamas won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936 for his personal contribution to the cause of peace in Latin America. Hide Caption 72 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Carl Von Ossietzky, seen here in a concentration camp uniform, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. Hide Caption 73 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Arthur Henderson, Britain's foreign secretary, arrives at 10 Downing Street in London on August 17, 1931. Henderson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934. Hide Caption 74 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Sir Norman Angell won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933 for promoting international peace. Hide Caption 75 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Swedish Bishop Nathan Söderblom won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. Söderblom was the first clergyman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Hide Caption 76 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Frank Billings Kellogg, an American diplomat, speaks after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in a ceremony at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway. The award commemorates his origination of the Kellogg Peace Pact, which was signed by European nations and the United States in Paris. Kellogg won the Peace Prize in 1929. Hide Caption 77 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners French educator Ferdinand Buisson was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1927 with Ludwig Quidde, right, who founded the League for Human Rights. Hide Caption 78 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners German politician and industrialist Gustav Stresemann, left, and French politician Aristide Briand received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926. Hide Caption 79 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners British statesman and Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain, left, and American statesman and financier Charles Gates Dawes won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925. Hide Caption 80 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Norwegian Arctic explorer and statesman Fridtjof Nansen won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. Hide Caption 81 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Christian Lous Lange, left, and Karl Hjalmar Branting won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1921 for promoting global peace. Hide Caption 82 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners French socialist statesman Leon Victor Auguste Bourgeois, founder of the League of Nations, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1920. Hide Caption 83 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners President Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. Hide Caption 84 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Belgian diplomat Henri La Fontaine, who served as president of the Permanent International Peace Bureau, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913. Hide Caption 85 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners American jurist and statesman Elihu Root, who served as U.S. Secretary of War from 1899-1904, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912 for his promotion of international arbitration. Hide Caption 86 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Tobias Michael Carel Asser, left, and Alfred Hermann Fried won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911 for their efforts in promoting peace among nations. Hide Caption 87 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The International Peace Bureau won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910. Hide Caption 88 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners French diplomat Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet d'Estournelles de Constant, Baron de Constant de Rebecque, left, and Belgian Prime Minister Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1909. Hide Caption 89 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Danish writer and politician Fredrik Bajer, left, and Swedish author and politician Klas Pontus Arnoldson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1908. Hide Caption 90 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The Nobel Peace Prize in 1907 was awarded jointly to Italian journalist Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, left, and French industrialist Louis Renault. Hide Caption 91 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 was awarded to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Hide Caption 92 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Austrian author Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner became the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905. Hide Caption 93 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Members of the Red Cross Motor Corps, all wearing masks to protect against the further spread of the influenza epidemic, carry a patient on a stretcher into an ambulance in St. Louis in October 1918. The International Committee of the Red Cross won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917. Hide Caption 94 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The Institute of International Law won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1904 for promoting peace around the world. Hide Caption 95 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners English politician, pacifist and trade unionist Sir William Randal Cremer won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1903. Hide Caption 96 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners Swiss activist Elie Ducommun and Swiss lawyer Charles Albert Gobat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1902. Hide Caption 97 of 98 Photos: Nobel Peace Prize winners The first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 was awarded jointly to Swiss activist Jean Henry Dunant, left, and French economist Frederic Passy. Hide Caption 98 of 98

"I truly hope that this award ... will help broader efforts to achieve peace in that country and (ease) the suffering of its people," Uzumcu said told reporters Friday afternoon.

Uzumcu, saying he was "pleasantly surprised" by the award and acknowledging it was a great honor, added that "events in Syria have been a tragic reminder that there remains much work yet to be done."

"The recognition that the peace prize brings will spur us to untiring effort, even stronger commitment and greater dedication," he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama congratulated the group. A White House statement said "this award honors those who make it their life's work to advance this vital goal."

"Today's award recognizes that commitment, and reinforces the trust and confidence the world has placed in the OPCW, Director-General Ahmed Uzumcu, and the courageous OPCW experts and inspectors taking on the unprecedented challenge of eliminating Syria's chemical weapons program," the statement said.

Team in Syria

A team from the OPCW and the United Nations has been in Syria since October 1, and it 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 by a U.N. Security Council resolution 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.

The team is in Syria is made up of 35 members, but the OPCW is preparing to deploy a second team to strengthen the effort. The group plans 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," Uzumcu said.

JUST WATCHED Past Nobel Peace Prize winners Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Past Nobel Peace Prize winners 06:07

JUST WATCHED Former inspector: Timeline not practical Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Former inspector: Timeline not practical 04:12

JUST WATCHED Syria begins to destroy chemical weapons Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Syria begins to destroy chemical weapons 01:19

On August 21, a chemical attack outside Damascus led the United States and its allies to call 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.

The United States estimates the Syrian arsenal 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.

But in 1997, 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

In the lead-up to the prize announcement Friday, the global media speculated that an individual would win, possibly Congolese physician Denis Mukwege, who treats victims of gang rape, or Malala Yousafzai, the teenage education activist from Pakistan whom a Taliban assassin shot for her work to promote education for girls.

Malala appeared to be the front-runner in headlines around the world.

CNN's Monita Rajpal asked Jagland why she did not win.

"Fortunately, we have many good candidates every year, actually this year, more than 250. And the woman you mentioned, Malala, is an outstanding woman, but we never comment on why she or others didn't get the prize," he said. "The right answer is that she didn't get the prize because OPCW got it. She and others will probably be candidates in the years to come."

A Twitter account in Malala's name sent out a message congratulating the OPCW and thanking it for its work. In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, which is to air at 7 p.m. Sunday, Malala said it might be premature for her to receive the Nobel Peace Prize this early in her life.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated the OPCW, saying it has "greatly strengthened the rule of law in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation."

"From the battlefields to the laboratories to the negotiating table, the United Nations is honored to work hand-in-hand with the OPCW to eliminate the threat posed by chemical weapons for all people and for all time," Ban said Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also voiced congratulations. He highlighted the organization's role in Syria.

"The Nobel Committee has rightly recognized their bravery and resolve to carry out this vital mission amid an ongoing war in Syria," he said.

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.

The final Nobel Prize, recognizing achievement in the field of economics, will be awarded Monday.