Nobel 'should have been mine': Assad

The Nobel Peace Prize given to global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW "should have been mine", Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly said.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has reportedly said as a joke that he should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The prize, which was given to the global chemical weapons watchdog on Friday, "should have been mine", he said, according to pro-Damascus Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.

The daily says Assad made the remark "jokingly" while commenting on the award to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is working in Syria to destroy the Assad regime's massive chemical arsenal.

Al-Akhbar also reported that Assad proposed in 2003 that all countries in the region should hand over all weapons of mass destruction.

The OPCW and the UN have had a team of 60 experts and support staff in Syria since October 1, while the civil war rages on.

It began its work after a breakthrough UN Security Council resolution last month ordering Syria's chemical stockpile destroyed.

The resolution came after a chemical attack in Damascus province on August 21 that killed hundreds of people.