America's attention may have turned inward after the shutdown, but the Nobel Committee has brought the conflict in Syria back into the global spotlight, CNN reports.

(Wikimedia Commons)

This Friday in Oslo, Norway, the committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international NGO whose inspectors are working in an active war zone to reduce Syria's deadly stockpiles of poison gas.

SEE ALSO: Destruction Of Syrian Chemical Weapons Begins

According to CNN, however, committe chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said the prize was not for the OPCW's work in Syria alone.

"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 og weapons of mass destruction," he said.

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