Peace stone from Hiroshima presented to Albania

TIRANA, June 4 – Japan presented Albania with a stone from the site of the 1945 atomic bombing of the Japanese city, Hiroshima, engraved with an image of a Buddhist goddess of mercy. This now makes Albania part of a group of 100 nations to have received the stones since the donation campaign was started in 1991 by the Hiroshima-based civic group Stone for Peace Association.
A ceremony marking the donation of the “Stone for Peace,” one of the paving stones for Hiroshima streetcar tracks that were just 200 meters away from the site of the attack, was held at the National History Museum in Tirana.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were present at the ceremony.
The head of the group, Michio Umemoto, said, “We are reassured that the linkage through the countries that possess this stone will continue expanding.”
The stone was placed at the museum garden near a 5-meter tree planted in 2003 in commemoration of a visit there by Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner of Albanian descent.
The granite stone — some 50 centimeters square and weighing about 50 kilograms — was one of 200 stones donated by Hiroshima Electric Railway Co. Academic experts have verified that the stones are free of radioactivity.
The Hiroshima group has been pushing the campaign in the belief that it would be “a good service to mankind” if the leader of every nation possessed one of the stones as a symbol of world peace, Umemoto said.