The Japanese "Peace Ship" with 1,000 passengers on board, including survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Holocaust, arrived in the port of Piraeus on Tuesday in the framework of promoting the campaign the UN 2012 program "For a world without nuclear weapons." The project of Peace Boat is supported by the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) and is in partnership with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and IKV Pax Christi.
Representatives of civil society from many countries - including international and regional participants from Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine - convening in Civitavecchia, Italy and on board the Peace Boat in the Mediterranean Sea from March 23-27 under the auspices of the Horizon 2012 Project to discuss the conference on the Middle East Nuclear Weapons and All Other Weapons of Mass Destructions Free Zone (MENWMDFZ) scheduled for 2012 in Finland. The Ambassador of Finland to Italy, Petri Tuomi-Nikula, welcomed the initiative and provided an update about the conference.
The participants affirm that ownership of the preparatory process, the conference itself and its final outcomes lies with the peoples of the region. The lessons of history and current developments worldwide demonstrate indisputably that civil society has a decisive role to play in determining the future of the region, and ignoring this will prove disastrous. In view of this the civil society representatives agreed on a set of recommendations for the success of the conference to be sent to the Facilitator of the conference, Ambassador Jaakko Laajava.
The participants affirm that the Middle East free from nuclear weapons and other WMDs is in the national security interests and the collective regional security interest of all the states in the region. It will also protect and strengthen the human security of all the peoples of the region, equally and without discrimination, enabling them to live without fear and in freedom and dignity, progressing towards peace and development. This will be an important building block towards achieving the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction. They agreed unanimously that the 2012 conference in Finland should be the beginning of a time-bound negotiating process towards achieving MENWMDFZ and pledged their support for the continuation of that process beyond 2012.
They stressed the importance of universal attendance and optimum participation of all states in the region, urging that no acts of violence or belligerence should be taken that would harm or undermine the prospects of the 2012 conference.
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