ISLAMABAD, Feb 11: Nineteen Unesco goodwill ambassadors have expressed their great concern over the war risk in Iraq in their annual meeting in Paris.

This was stated in a press release issued by Unesco office based in the capital.

The press release said the statement was drafted on the occasion of their annual meeting in Paris on February 6.

The statement said:

(i) That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defences of peace must be constructed.”

(ii) “That ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the worlds through which their differences have all too often broken into war”.

(iii) That the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred duty, which all the nations must fulfil in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern.

(iv) “That a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace, which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind;

Therefore, we are convinced that a war may be avoided and urge the Iraqi authorities to fully cooperate with the United Nations.