Assad: Nobel prize should have been mine

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has jokingly said that he should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a pro-Damascus Lebanese newspaper has reported.

The prize, which was given to the global chemical weapons watchdog on Friday, “should have been mine”, Assad said, according to Al-Akhbar newspaper.

Assad made the remark “jokingly“, the daily said, as he commented on the award on Friday of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is working in Syria to destroy the Assad regime’s massive chemical arsenal by mid-2014.