Greenpeace renews peace call

Greenpeace renewed its call for peace yesterday to mark the 60th anniversary of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused by two US atomic bombs.

Greenpeace challenged world leaders to implement their decades-old commitment to nuclear disarmament and to Middle East governments to make real their calls for a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East.

Almost 10,000 "Wings of Peace" messages sent to Greenpeace by people from all over the world were attached to large dove-shaped balloons and flown in front of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Memorial to commemorate the more than 300,000 people who died in the atomic bombings.

"The Middle East could be a leader in the nuclear disarmament initiative," said Anne Muscat Scerri, Campaigns Director of Greenpeace Mediterranean.

"As long as the threat of nuclear weapons is hovering over the region, the race for acquisition of nuclear weapons will speed up, the current tension will intensify and the hope for peace recede," she said.

At yesterday's ceremony, Greenpeace representatives from around the world recommitted the international organisation to its campaign for peace and work for an end to nuclear weapons and technologies and materials used to create them.

"With the increased tension building in the Middle East, the risk of facing another Hiroshima is closer than ever," Ms Muscat Scerri added.

The first step which needed to be taken now, she said, was increasing trust through commitment to dialogue instead of unilateral action which only increased the distrust.